During the COVID pandemic social workers became concerned with the country’s mental health, especially the teenage population. They initiated a new (988) mental health crisis hotline and immediately began to receive significantly more calls in August 2022 than they had received in August 2021 on the old 10-digit suicide prevention line it replaced. The 988 number received 216,000 calls in August 2022, compared with 141,400 calls to the old number in August 2021. The new crisis line also received 39,900 texts, compared with 3,400 to the old crisis line.

Alarming Data

The nationwide social work community openly discusses the deterioration of the nation’s mental health as it witnesses an alarming increase in mass killings, suicide, and reports of domestic violence incidents that too frequently lead to intimate partner homicide.

1. Mass Shootings- The U.S. is setting a record pace for mass killings in 2023, replaying the horror on a loop roughly once a week so far this year. The carnage has taken 88 lives in 17 mass killings over 111 days.

2. Suicide - The suicide rate in the United States increased 35.2% from 10.4 per 100,000 in 2000 to 14.2 per 100,000 in 2018.  In 2021, 48,183 Americans died by suicide.

• Every day, approximately 132 Americans die by suicide.

• Suicide is the 11^th leading cause of death in the U.S.

• Suicide is the 3rd leading cause of death for 15- to 24-year-olds.

• Overall, 22% of high school students in a recent survey said that they had seriously considered suicide within the past year, up from 16% in 2011.

• 18% said that they had made a suicide plan.

• 10% said they attempted suicide at least once. All demographic groups across race, ethnicity, and sex experienced increases in suicide risk since 2011, but certain groups faced greater risk than others.

• Female students continue to be at higher risk for suicidal thoughts and behaviors than their male counterparts. Three in 10 females (30%) said that they seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year, and nearly a quarter (24%) had made a suicide plan. This represents a 60% increase in both measures over the past decade. During the same period, suicide attempts by female students increased by 30%.

Domestic Violence Homicide 

• On average, nearly 20 people per minute are physically abused by an intimate partner in the United States. For one year, this equates to more than 10 million women and men.

• In a typical day there are approximately 20,000 calls made to domestic violence hotlines across the country.

• 72% of all murder-suicides involve an intimate partner.

• 94% of the victims of these murder suicides are female.

• Approximately 2 out of 5 female murder victims are killed by an intimate partner.

• 62% of these victims are wives.

• Women between the ages of 18-24 are most commonly abused by an intimate partner.

• Domestic victimization is correlated with a higher rate of depression and suicidal behavior.

Beyond 988

• The alarming increase in mass murders, teen-age suicide, and intimate partner homicide is a clinical sign of a dramatic decline in our national mental health. Psychologists and social workers say that the social isolation caused by the pandemic coupled with a ubiquitous connection to social media sites via the ever handy “cell phone” has put unbearable social pressure on the psyche of young Americans.

• The relentless divisive political discourse poured out by cable news (the social media of the elderly) is traumatizing and dividing our older population.

• Both tech evolutions are ubiquitous and cannot be tempered.

• Society is embarking on a learning curve where we must learn to cope with a newly persistent and intrusive psychic environment.

• To specifically address the suicide crisis among young people, for example, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued recommendations in 2022 for pediatric health providers to screen everyone ages 12 and older for suicide risk at least once a year. Identifying individuals at risk for suicide is the first step to preventing suicides, and screening all patients regardless of whether they have a behavioral health concern or a diagnosis—a practice known as universal suicide risk screening—has been shown to effectively identify suicide risk in health settings for both pediatric and adult populations.

• The availability of the 988 hotline has already saved countless domestic violence situations from spinning out of control and ending in the death of an intimate partner.

We have made a beginning but have a long way to go along the curve.