Many Americans believe that suicide rates spike every time the holiday season comes around. There's just one catch: It's not true.

Yet, a new analysis reveals that 56% of stories published last year in U.S. newspapers that touched on a potential connection between the holidays ...

Pregnant and postpartum women are dying of drug overdoses in record numbers, and the COVID-19 pandemic has only made things worse, a new study shows.

Deaths increased about 81% over the past four years, hitting a record high in 2020, according to researchers from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health in New York City.

"We've seen significant increases in fatal and non...

A national hotline that people can call in a mental health emergency went down for a day before it was restored late Thursday.

Those in crisis could still reach counselors by texting 988 or visiting 988lifeline.org during the outage. The U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's Disaster Distress Helpline was also down.

It's unclear what happened to cause the...

The kids aren't alright.

Up to 1 in 5 children in the United States has a mental health condition, but only about half of those who need mental health care are now receiving it. What's more, suicide is the second leading cause of death among U.S. kids and teens, and youth suicide rates have been rising over the last decade.

Now, about one year after the U.S. Surgeon General cit...

Guns cause more than half of all suicides in the United States each year, and new research finds most of these are handguns owned by the deceased that were stored unlocked and loaded.

Researchers used data from the National Violent Death Reporting System to examine the deaths of more than 117,000 people who killed themselves with guns between 2003 and 2018.

"These results highlight ...

In a finding that illustrates just how deeply racial disparities permeate the U.S. health care system, a new government report finds that suicide rates dipped slightly among white Americans while they rose for Black and Hispanic Americans.

"Although the recent decline in suicide rates for non-Hispanic whi...

Americans aged 25 to 44 — so-called millennials — are dying at significantly higher rates from three leading killers than similarly aged people just 10 years ago, the latest government data shows.

Looking at data collected between 2000 and 2020, the new report from the U.S. National Center for He...

A new study that looks at suicide risk among U.S. teens who are lesbian, gay and bisexual finds they have disproportionately high rates of suicidal thoughts, planning and attempts compared to their heterosexual peers.

“The major message of this paper is that among a group of survivors of these types of violence, those who identify as a sexual minority are more likely to develop suicidal...

Illinois has seen a recent surge in the number of kids arriving in the emergency room for suicidal thoughts -- both during and shortly before the pandemic, according to a new study.

Among kids ages 5 to 19, ER visits for suicidal thoughts rose by 59% across the state between 2016 and 2021, researchers found. That included a sharp spike in the fall of 2019, followed by another in the fall ...

A single psychedelic trip with psilocybin -- the mind-altering component of magic mushrooms -- appears to lift the fog of major depression in some hard-to-treat patients, a new clinical trial reports.

A 25-milligram dose of a synthetic psilocybin compound called COMP360 caused a "rapid and durable response" in more than a third of patients suffering from treatment-resistant depression, sa...

When teens and young adults go to the emergency room or are hospitalized for critical mental health issues a staggering number are not receiving quick follow-up care, new U.S. research finds.

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts looked at more than 100,000 ER visits of young people ages 12 to 27 who have private insurance. Only about 29% received follow-up care within seve...

As the 988 crisis line debuts across the United States, a new Harris Poll shows that Americans are ready to make mental health and suicide prevention a top priority.

Over eight in 10 adults now believe it's more important than ever to consider suicide prevention a national public health crisis, according to the poll spon...

Murders and suicides involving guns have reached an all-time high in the United States, health officials reported Thursday.

From 2020 to 2021, the rate of firearm homicides increased by more than 8%, as did the rate of firearm suicides, according to the report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"It's worth noting that firearms were used in the vast majority of...

Thoughts of suicide are often a first reaction to a diagnosis of dementia before age 65, a new study suggests.

Suicide risk is highest in the first three months after the dementia diagnosis and if the patient already has a psychiatric disorder, British researchers found. For those younger...

The suicide rate in the United States increased in 2021, following two years of decline, according to preliminary data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The number of suicides increased to 47,646 in 2021, up from 45,979 in 2020, according to researchers at the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics.

As a result, the U.S. suicide rate also increased ...

More than 1 million Americans attempted suicide in 2020, and a new study is hinting at a potential way to reduce that risk: prescription folic acid.

The study, of more than 800,000 Americans in a health care database, found that when people were on prescription folic acid, their likelihood of being treated for