A latest analysis has showed that in US between the beginning of 1996 and the end of 2010, more than half of the 66,595 suicides by adolescents and young adults were enacted by firearm. It has also found that the toll was higher in the case of rural areas than the urban areas.

For a research, published in JAMA Pediatrics, the county noted down the number of suicides in the US, among the age group including all children from the age of 10 to all young adults of the age 24, and put it through a statistical analysis.

The county found that there was a higher rate in the most rural counties, by a factor of 2.05 for males, than the most urban areas in 1996-1998, and in 2008-2010, this rural differential rose to 2.69 times the rate in urban areas for male suicide deaths committed by gun.

The analysis covered the years 1996-2010 and found that the suicide disparity was shown by both men and women.

In the case of males, rural suicide rates were almost twice than those of urban ones that is there were 19.9 per 100,000 men in rural areas whereas in urban the ratio was 10.3 per 100,000 men.

A similar disparity was also shown by the females among their fewer suicides overall. The ratio was (4.4 per 100,000 women in rural and in urban it was 2.4 per 100,000 women.

The analysis found that in US, around 51.1% of all the suicides were done by firearm, 33.9% were committed by hanging/suffocation, 7.9% by the use of poison, and 7.1% were by other means.

Cynthia Fontanella, PhD, of the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus, has produced the updated comparison of rural and urban youth suicides.