Dallas — Millennial workers are more likely to contemplate suicide than any other age group – including up to five times more so than baby boomers – results of a recent analysis indicate.
Researchers at Catapult Health, a national preventive health care provider, looked at more than 157,000 patient records, including data from checkups conducted by the company at workplaces across 44 states.
They found that, of the patients younger than 30, 2.3 per 1,000 reported not only considering suicide, but also having a plan to carry it out. For workers 60 and older, that rate was 0.4 per 1,000 and, across all age groups, the average was 0.86.
“The numbers may seem small,” Catapult CEO David Michel said in a May 1 press release, “but if your company has 5,000 employees, that means that at any given moment four of them are probably seriously considering suicide, and the number is higher if you employ more younger workers.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suicide is the second leading cause of death among millennials and the 10th leading cause of death in the United States.
In addition, workers younger than 30 are significantly more likely to experience depression than older employees, Catapult states.
“It is imperative that employers help their employees recognize depression and provide the resources to overcome it,” Michel said in the release.