Self-injury is a major killer in the US - research

When deaths from substance abuse are counted as self-inflicted, then deaths from self-injury in the US are tied with deaths attributed to diabetes and outnumber those from influenza and pneumonia or kidney disease, new research suggests. "Self injury is a major killer and it encompasses more than suicide," said study leader Ian Rockett, of West Virginia University School of Public Health in Morgantown. Self-injury deaths in the US are generally underestimated because suicides by poisoning and drug overdose are often misclassified as "accidents" on death certificates, he and his colleagues write in JAMA Psychiatry August 24. In 2004, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) listed diabetes as the country's seventh leading cause of death, influenza and pneumonia as the eighth leading cause and kidney disease as the ninth leading cause. Intentional self-injury - including suicide - was tenth. For the new study, the researchers used data from the CDC on deaths occurring in the US between 1999 and 2014. In addition to deaths already attributed to suicide or self-injury, the researchers also classified 80 percent of deaths labeled "accidental" drug intoxication deaths...

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