From 2014 to 2023, the firearm suicide\/suicide ratio increased among women, but remained unchanged among men<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n
By Elana Gotkine HealthDay Reporter<\/b>
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THURSDAY, Sept. 4, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Suicide deaths by firearms have increased among older women, according to a research letter published online Aug. 26 in JAMA Network Open<\/em>.<\/p>\n Ziming Xuan, Sc.D., from the Boston University School of Public Health, and colleagues conducted a cross-sectional study to examine trends in firearm suicides among older adults. Counts, crude rates, and age-adjusted rates of suicide deaths were obtained from the CDC WONDER database from Jan. 1, 2014, through Dec. 31, 2023. The ratio of firearm suicides to all suicides (FS\/S) was calculated for each year.<\/p>\n Overall, 63,559 older individuals who died by firearm suicide were included in the study (median age, 75 years; 8.8 percent female; 91.2 percent male). The researchers found that the FS\/S ratio increased from 34.9 to 38.5 percent among women (\u03b2 = 0.42). From 2014 to 2023, there was an increase in crude firearm suicide rates per 100,000 population, from 1.76 to 2.20 (\u03b2 = 0.04). Men had substantially higher firearm suicide rates, but their FS\/S ratio did not change over time. The interaction between sex and trend increased significantly among women versus men.<\/p>\n “It is essential to enhance access to mental health care for older adults, particularly in states with less restrictive firearm control policies and high levels of firearm ownership,” the authors write.<\/p>\n