The suicide rate was 14 deaths per 100,000 people. That's the highest since at least 1975.
—Montana had the highest suicide rate, and New York the lowest. Suicide rates were
nearly twice as high in rural counties than in urban ones.
—The percentage of suicides due to drug overdose has been inching downward.
—Deaths from flu and pneumonia rose by about 6 percent. The 2017-2018 flu season was one of the worst in more than a decade, and some of the deaths from early in that season appeared in the new death dates.
—West Virginia was once again the state with the highest rate of drug overdose deaths. The CDC did not release state rates for suicides.
—Death rates for heroin, methadone and prescription opioid painkillers were flat. But deaths from the powerful painkiller fentanyl and its close opioid cousins continued to soar in 2017.
—Gun deaths rose for a third year in a row, to nearly 40,000. That's about 1,000 more than in 2016. They had been hovering around 33,500 deaths until a few years ago.
Like in other years, most gun deaths were suicides. Earlier CDC reports have noted increasing rates of suicide by gun. In 2017, it about 60 percent of them were by gun.
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