More Lives Lost to Alcohol, Drugs and Suicide than Diabetes

(Winter 2018) Mortalities due to self-injury, a term encompassing alcohol and other drug use as well as suicide, outpaced diabetes to become the seventh-highest cause in America, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently revealed. Using statistics from 2016, the CDC found that about 29 individuals per 100,000 perished from self-injury, versus approximately 25 people per 100,000 from diabetes.

Although the self-harm category now claims more lives than diabetes, the report pointed out that prevention initiatives are not at an appropriate level. CDC researchers suggest that public and health care providers consider the various types of self-injuries as a group when launching future public health and prevention campaigns to reduce these deaths.

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