Unfortunately statistics like this don't paint the whole picture. Yes it is horrible when it occurs among young people. Living in these times is hard and is getting worse.Yes mental illness is a big issue and our dropping the ball on mental health is another black eye for this so called 'Great Country' (not). Both these two issues are getting worse under tRump and ilk and will hit the rood if he stays in office. Another problem I see is the pressure of religious groups to play up the 'suicide' issue in order squelch any ideas of the Death with Dignity programs or even any talk of a euthanasia program like exists in the Netherlands and Switzerland. It was a letter in our local paper about this very subject that got me started and I wrote a letter with a link to NPR that appeared in all 3 of our local papers. Another complex being made to look simple by certain groups.

The cause is pretty obvious. America is a terrible place to live if you are not rich, aren't healthy and don't have affordable insurance, job and educational opportunities are poor or non-existent for tens of millions of people, our political system offers no real hope for the future of most Americans, esp. the young, and lastly, we have the opioid epidemic. It's called an epidemic of "deaths of despair". Almost forgot to mention all the suicides of military vets of our Middle East wars, that outnumber the number of battlefield deaths in those wars.

Yikes

It's so sad and it gives an idea about people's mental health. It's significant the suicide rate among males age 15 to 24 .
Few weeks ago I had to write a research paper for my school, I came across some interesting correlation between toxic masculinity and the suicide rate among men in the US . It has something to do with the society's expectations from boys and men and how they have to be " strong " , competitive, and they're not allowed to express fears, vulnerability, weakness, all of those expectations lead to create more depressed boys and men , and as we know depression can lead to suicidal behaviors or suicide ):

I had not read anything on the suicide rate for a while. This really tears at your heart. How do we help turn this around?