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Youth suicide has always been pretty bad in the US and it's getting worse https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/youth-suicide-rates-are-...

That's from 2019, numbers for the last 3 years are a little harder get but like attempts went up but deaths went down at least in most places but in a couple places deaths shot up a lot?

https://www.nichd.nih.gov/newsroom/news/042722-COVID-adolesc...

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/youth-suicide-attempts-...

I was floored when I met some students from NYU who explained they've installed nets in the library because there have been so many suicides from people jumping.

Yikes.

Not exactly how I remember it.. but yeah. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/nyu-bobst-library-suicides-al...

NYU is also more vertical than most universities in the US. How many university buildings in the US are 12 floors or higher?

I don't care if the building 100 floors - the problem is not the height of the building. The problem is that young people in the US who are clearly privileged enough to attend a very prestigious university are driven to suicide.

Tall structures everywhere are suicide magnets because they are fairly accessible and the means of death is easy and (seems) fairly certain. It’s why you can’t build a large bridge with a pedestrian walkway without some kind of safety netting, and that’s globally.

Countries by suicides per 100,000 population:

US: 14.5 UK: 6.9 Germany: 8.3

The problem IS NOT tall structures. The problem is something about US society.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r...

> the problem is not tall structures

https://www.skyscrapercenter.com/countries

The data shows that the USA has way more tall buildings than most of Europe, by more than an order of magnitude.

Disclaimer: I don’t agree they’re a leading cause, rather an accessory to a suicide premeditated by various health/societal factors.

I remember when the exact same thing was used to berate Apple for working with Foxconn.

Looking at the date of the article, they were almost contemporary.

Youth suicide in the US has been in the press a lot lately but it's not really one of those things that's really bad or getting worse. It's less frequent than it was years ago, and less frequent than in many OECD countries. That sets it apart from the overall picture which shows the US to be worse than all other advanced countries and rapidly getting worse.

For anyone else not hip with the lingo, KSI seemingly refers to 'Killed or Serious Injury'

The problem with drug overdoses can be directly tied to the War on Drugs. The entire campaign criminalized addiction vs focusing on rehabilitation, it removed outlets from relief in many states and it has only made illicit drug quality significantly worse (versus removing access to them).

This is one of those metrics that really makes US federalism apparent and shows the drastic difference in outcomes from the two major parties. By reviewing the per state metrics[1], you can see that states that take a much lighter hand to drug criminalization and that offer state sponsored relief (California, for instance) have a much lower death rate to ones that take a heavy hand (southern states, New Mexico, etc).

1 - https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/drug_poisoning_mor...

Your map tells no such story. In particular, California's low rate cannot be attributed to California's policies, as California's rate is matched by Utah, Idaho, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, etc.

You say Southern States have a higher death rate, yet Mississippi (typically considered archetypical of the deep south) a lower per-capita drug overdose rate.

Texas, which is a state dominated by the party that does not rule California has an overdose rate about 75% that of California.

There's a lot more going on than your analysis would suggest.

> Deaths by billion vehicle miles in UK

UK driving test is difficult, and I suspect drunk driving is much lower because distances are lesser and public transport is better.

> suicides

Much easier when you have a gun around

And DUI is treated much more seriously in the UK, consequences are stricter (for example, no "oh you need a car to get to work so you can carry on driving but only too and from work" loophole) and there is greater social opprobrium to drink driving.

Yes, it's fairly common to go to prison for drink-driving here.

Re: Vehicle miles. In the UK a license proves you are competent to drive. In the US a license proves you are not incompetent. The US driving test is set so that over 90% pass, deliberately. Because driving is seen as necessary.

Has that changed? Is the UK license standard as high as it once was?

> I hadn't realized that!

That's because the media only reports on unusual deaths.

For example, sometimes I'll see the emergency crews pulling a body out of Lake Washington. It never makes the news. Drowning deaths are too common.

Many drownings could have been prevented but it's still a relatively niche cause of death. Unintentional drowning is ten times less frequent than either of falling or motor vehicle crashes, which are about the same frequency. The main way that drownings could be prevented among adults is by enforcing alcohol rules, or having some in the first place, but that goes against the entire theme of American water recreation. Which is sort of the point of the article: dying unnecessarily is part of the culture of America.

> Many drownings could have been prevented but it's still a relatively niche cause of death.

I read somewhere that drownings were the 2nd leading cause of death for children. Cars were #1.

People drown mainly because they underestimate the risk of it.

I know parents who had their toddler drown. The grief and devastation of that never stops, decade after decade. They had camped near a river bank, and the kid wandered off into the water.

In the youngest age group, drowning beats cars even. https://wisqars.cdc.gov/data/lcd/drill-down?causeLabel=Unint...

Basically the #1 causes of unintentional death in age order are drowning (<5), cars (5-20) then drugs (20+).

> In fact, way, more KSI from car accidents than even gun related homicide in the US. I hadn't realized that!

Guns get an outsized portion of air time on most media. Especially crimes committed by legal weapons against white people. If all gun crimes were covered equally you would hears a lot more about gang violence and illegal weapons.

> Deaths by gun related homicide in UK - 200. In US - 20000. (Both numbers pale in comparison to motor vehicle deaths, but there are a lot more in the US. Probably to be expected as there is stringent firearm control in the UK.)

I'd be curious to see the difference between gun homicides and homicides. The UK has a huge knife crime problem.

> I'm thinking overdoses is a major contributor. It's the only way to get to millions in less than 10 years. Car accidents, maybe, but honestly it's not that much compared to the number of young people who die every year. Ditto, with gun related homicide, which is even less than car accidents.

Overdoses and drug related deaths. Drug addiction will shorten a person's lifespan by decades.

Your drug and gun deaths are totals right? That makes the US look worse than it really is due to the large population difference. If that’s the case then you can divide the US number by about 5 to make it actually comparable (and still terrible).

The road deaths surprise me the most , as most American roads are big and straight and most British roads are small and squiggly!

I can guess a few reasons:

* Cars tend to be bigger i.e. more dangerous in the US

* Drink driving seems to be more acceptable in the USA.

* The driving test in the UK is much tougher than even the toughest us state

* Most of the US don't have mandatory annual vehicle inspections to check they're safe and roadworthy

Big and straight allows higher speeds and less need to pay attention. Lane width is a major contributor to the actual speed driven.

It's counterintuitive, but broad and straight roads are often more dangerous, as they invite faster driving.

Faster *inattentive* driving.

I'm always kind of surprised how terrified Americans visiting the UK are, when they see the kind of speeds people drive at here.

If you're coming here on holiday from the US and you're planning your route using Google Maps, double the time estimate. You won't like the speeds it expects you to drive at.

> roads are big and straight

To accommodate big cars.