Get Healthy!

• Posted August 1, 2025

When Local Homicide Rates Rise, Suicides Rise Soon After

There may be a connection between a community’s homicide and suicide rates: When murder rates rise, there’s typically a local uptick in suicides a year later, new U.S. research shows.

These trends were especially strong for gun-related incidents, according to a team from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J. 

The findings suggest that “local violence doesn’t only harm the victims – it destabilizes entire communities in ways that increase the risk of suicide,” said study leader Daniel Semenza. He directs research at the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center.

Put another way, “violence prevention is suicide prevention,” Semenza said in a Rutgers news release.

The researchers tracked 50 years’ worth of data — from 1968 through 2019 — for homicides and suicides in counties across 48 U.S. states.

The main finding: A one-point rise in homicides in a county during one year was linked to an average 3.6% rise in suicides the following year.

That trend got stronger for homicides and suicides committed with a gun: A one-point rise in gun-related killings was linked to a 5.7% rise in gun-related suicides the following year. 

The murder-suicide link was more pronounced in rural versus urban communities, and among white people versus Black Americans, although Black Americans were not unaffected, the researchers said. 

The bottom line?

“Interpersonal and self-directed violence are interconnected and should be treated as such,” said Semenza, who is also an associate professor at the Rutgers School of Public Health.

His team is convinced that any efforts to lower local suicide rates should include efforts to curb violent crimes generally, including restricting access to guns. 

The findings were published July 29 in Social Science & Medicine.

If you or someone you know is at risk for suicide, free, anonymous help is at hand 24/7 at the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

More information

Learn the warning signs of suicide at the National Institute for Mental Health.

SOURCE: Rutgers University, news release, July 29, 2025