Wyoming remains among the nation’s highest suicide rate states

Wyoming recorded 169 suicide deaths in 2024, about 27.8 deaths per 100,000 people, a rate more than double the U.S. rate of 13.7 per 100,000. That kept the state among the nation’s highest-rate states even after it likely slipped out of first place following five years at the top.

The numbers point to a structural problem, not a single cause. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says suicide risk is shaped by factors at the individual, relationship, community and societal levels, and its urban-rural research found suicide rates rose overall from 2000 through 2018, with rural rates increasing faster than urban rates after 2007. In Wyoming, where communities are spread across long distances and many counties face mental health workforce shortages, getting help can mean a longer drive, a longer wait and fewer local options.

Firearm access and stigma make that gap harder to close. Wyoming has long ranked among the states with the highest gun ownership, and efforts to reduce suicides have had to confront a culture that often treated the link between guns and suicide as untouchable. Public health work in the state has increasingly centered on safer storage and on lowering the stigma that keeps firearm owners from seeking help when a crisis hits.

The burden is also showing up in younger residents. The Wyoming Department of Health says the state’s adolescent and young adult suicide rate has increased over the past decade and has stayed continuously above the U.S. rate. That makes Wyoming’s crisis more than a headline about adult deaths in a single year; it is a long-running trend that reaches into schools, colleges and the early workforce.

Wyoming’s 2024-2028 State Suicide Prevention Plan says its goal is to support healthier lives and communities full of hope, purpose and connection. The plan says the Injury and Violence Prevention Program will use current partnerships, build new relationships and work with the Wyoming Alliance for Suicide Prevention through 2028. The department also runs a suicide prevention program and has added healthcare-based suicide prevention grants and training initiatives, signaling that the state is trying to push prevention into clinics as well as community settings. The challenge is whether those tools can reach enough people in a state where the isolation itself is part of the risk.