About 49,500 people took their own lives last year in the U.S., the highest number ever, according to new government data posted Thursday.

  • huginn@feddit.it
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    1 year ago

    Friendly reminder that statistics like this that aren’t adjusted per various should be taken with a grain of salt until the per capita* figures are available from the CDC.

    Just like murder rates etc: if you take only the highest number of something and don’t adjust by population it’s unclear if it’s actually worse than it has ever been or not. It’s not even clear if it is worse than last year without per capita figures.

    Not trying to minimize the tragedy of suicide but a lot of people read meaning into figures like this without context.

    • awwwyissss@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Good luck, this is anti-US propaganda and they’ll downvote you if you address it reasonably.

      • deranger@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I’m from the US and just upvoted that. Please don’t stereotype. I know there’s a lot of idiots here, but we’re not all stupid.

        • awwwyissss@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          I agree with it too and I’m not accusing Americans of being idiots at all, if that’s what you’re saying? I’m saying that lemmy is full of anti-American propaganda.

          • deranger@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Well it’s a bad comment, because I’m from the US and didn’t downvote. It’s also not propaganda.

          • jarfil@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            BS. Lemmy is extremely US-centric. The world is 8 billion, the US is not even 1:20 of that. Go take a look at Lemmy’s “All” feed, it’s more like 20:1 for the US.