NVDRS data portrait Source: CDC NVDRS, 2022 surveillance summary

Violent death in America, drawn from the National Violent Death Reporting System.

NVDRS is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) case-level ledger of violent death in the United States. This page shows the patterns it records: who dies, how, when and in what circumstances.

Scope. NVDRS covers violent deaths only: suicide, homicide, legal intervention, unintentional firearm and deaths of undetermined intent. It does not cover disease mortality, motor-vehicle crashes or accidental drug overdoses. Headline figures are for 2022, the most recent year with a complete published surveillance summary (MMWR SS, June 2025), covering all 50 states and the District of Columbia. For a broader view of U.S. mortality across all causes, see the companion page.
01 — Annual total

Violent deaths recorded in 2022.

74,148

Approximately 203 per day, or one every seven minutes. 2022 was the first year NVDRS had full 50-state coverage, so the count is not directly comparable to earlier years.

SUICIDE 61%
HOMICIDE 30%
UNDETER. 7%
  • Suicide60.6%44,917
  • Homicide30.2%22,395
  • Undetermined intent7.1%5,292
  • Legal intervention1.4%1,014
  • Unintentional firearm0.7%530

Suicides outnumber homicides by roughly 2 to 1. The suicide share rose to 60.6% in 2022 — the highest share on record — as the 2020–2021 homicide spike began to ease and suicide counts continued climbing.

02 — Method of death

Firearms are involved in most violent deaths.

A firearm was the method in 52.5% of suicides and 76.2% of homicides in 2022.

52.5% OF SUICIDES
Suicide by firearm
≈23,600 deaths · 2022
76.2% OF HOMICIDES
Homicide by firearm
≈17,100 deaths · 2022
Method share, all violent deaths
Firearm
≈56%
Hanging / suffocation
≈16%
Poisoning
≈12%
Sharp instrument
≈5%
Other / unknown
≈10%
03 — Demographics

Rates vary sharply by sex, race and age.

Suicide and homicide affect different populations. The highest-risk groups do not overlap.

Suicide rate per 100,000 Homicide rate per 100,000

Suicide rate, selected groups

Men, all races
23.7
Men age 85+
56.6
American Indian / AK Native
24.3
White, non-Hispanic
17.9
Veterans
34.7
Women, all races
6.1

Suicide rates rise steeply with age for men. The rate among men 85+ is roughly ten times the rate among women of all ages.

Homicide rate, selected groups

Black males, all ages
56.0
Ages 20–24, all groups
15.3
Hispanic males
11.6
Men, all races
12.0
White males, non-Hispanic
4.1
Women, all races
2.9

The Black male homicide rate is roughly 14 times the white male rate. The age peak is 20–24.

04 — Contributing circumstances

What case narratives record.

NVDRS abstractors code contributing circumstances from law-enforcement reports, medical-examiner narratives and next-of-kin interviews. A single death typically has several circumstances; percentages do not sum to 100.

Suicide

% of cases with circumstance coded
Current mental-health problem48%
Intimate-partner problem28%
Crisis in the past 2 weeks28%
Physical-health problem22%
Job or financial problem17%
Problem with alcohol16%
Left a suicide note34%
Disclosed intent beforehand24%

Homicide

% of cases with circumstance coded
Argument or conflict29%
Precipitated by another crime22%
Drug involvement22%
Gang-related10%
Intimate-partner violence (all)11%
IPV, female victims only34%
Child abuse/neglect, victims under 556%
Occurred at victim's home46%
05 — Geography

Violent-death rates by state.

Combined suicide and homicide rate, age-adjusted, per 100,000. State-level figures shown here reflect 2021 age-adjusted WISQARS rates (last year with a consistent cross-state comparison at publication time); Florida and Hawaii were not fully reporting in 2021 and are shown as "n/a." 2022 state-level tables are still being released.

LOW
HIGH 10 / 100k 40 / 100k

Highest combined rates: Mississippi, Louisiana, Wyoming, Alaska, New Mexico, Montana, Alabama. The Mountain West's rate is driven mainly by suicide; the Deep South's by both suicide and homicide.

06 — Timing

Seasonal and weekly patterns.

Suicide and homicide follow different, largely opposite patterns across the year and the week. Indexes below: 100 = annual average.

Suicide, by month

Suicides peak in April and May and are lowest in December. The "holiday suicide" assumption is not supported by the data; the spring peak has been documented in U.S. mortality data since the 19th century.

Homicide, by month

Homicides peak in July and are lowest in February. Summer rates run roughly 35% above winter rates.

Day of week

Suicide, by day
Homicide, by day

Suicides peak on Mondays; homicides peak on Saturdays. The weekly patterns are consistent across years.

07 — Location of homicide

Most homicides occur at the victim's home.

The share is higher for female victims and for victims under age 5.

46%
of homicides occurred at the victim's home
67%
of female homicide victims were killed at home
56%
of homicide victims under age 5 were killed by a parent or caregiver
34%
of female homicide victims were killed by a current or former intimate partner
≈12%
of homicides were committed by a stranger (where relationship is known)
≈2.5×
elevated homicide risk for women in households with a firearm (peer-reviewed case-control estimate)
08 — Murder-suicide

Linked homicide-suicide incidents.

NVDRS captures incidents in which the perpetrator kills one or more victims and then themselves. These account for roughly 2–3% of homicides and 3% of suicides, and are typically excluded from both headline categories.

Each dot represents one murder-suicide incident in the United States, 2021. Approximately 650 incidents and 1,400 deaths.

≈1,400
total deaths per year (perpetrators + victims)
94%
of perpetrators are male
88%
involve a firearm
72%
victim is an intimate partner or family member

Incidents involving perpetrators age 65 and older are the fastest-growing subgroup. Many occur in caregiving contexts where the victim has dementia or a terminal illness. Source: Violence Policy Center analysis of NVDRS data, 2012–2021.

09 — Regional concentration

Suicide rates in the Mountain West.

Epidemiologists refer to the Rocky Mountain states as the "Suicide Belt." Rates run roughly 1.6 to 2.3 times the national average.

Suicide rate, per 100,000, 2021
Wyoming
32.3
Montana
30.0
Alaska
29.8
New Mexico
25.3
Idaho
22.8
South Dakota
22.7
Colorado
22.2
Utah
22.0
National average
14.1
New York
8.1
New Jersey
8.0

Factors cited in the research literature

Firearm prevalence. Rocky Mountain states have the highest household firearm-ownership rates in the country. Firearm suicide attempts have an estimated case-fatality rate above 85%, compared with under 5% for drug overdose.
Rurality and access to care. Low population density is associated with longer distances to psychiatric services and fewer mental-health providers per capita.
Altitude. County-level studies (e.g., Brenner et al., 2011; Kim et al., 2014) find a positive association between elevation and suicide rate after controlling for firearms, rurality and demographics. The proposed mechanism is chronic mild hypoxia affecting serotonin metabolism. The association is consistent but the causal pathway remains debated.
10 — Mass shootings in context

Public mass shootings as a share of U.S. homicides.

Each square represents 100 homicide deaths in 2021. Red squares represent deaths in public mass shootings.

Non-mass-shooting homicide (≈20,500)
Public mass-shooting deaths (≈700)

Public mass shootings account for roughly 3% of U.S. homicides and under 1% of all violent deaths recorded by NVDRS. Definitions vary: the Gun Violence Archive's 4+-injured count yields higher totals; the FBI's active-shooter definition yields lower ones. 700 is a mid-range annual figure over the past decade.

Mass-shooting deaths are not separately tabulated in the NVDRS surveillance summary; the figure here is drawn from the Violence Project and Gun Violence Archive databases.