Suicidal acts result in either a fatal injury (suicide), or a nonfatal injury (suicide attempt). This cost analysis presents the costs of estimated fatal and nonfatal injuries for the year 2013, the latest reported national data, in 2013 U.S. dollars. Each type of injury incurred both direct costs, which are directly related to injury treatment, and indirect economic costs, which are mainly productivity losses from premature death or lost time from injuries. More specifically, the costs for medical care (especially emergency departments and inpatient hospitalization), ambulance transport, investigations by medical examiners or coroners, nursing home care, general and specialty physicians’ care, and follow‐up care comprise the direct costs. Indirect economic costs consist of the net present value of future salaries and wages, fringe benefits, and the value of household productivity lost or reduced by the suicide or suicide attempt. We calculated aggregate direct and indirect costs by age category, gender, state of residence, and outcome (fatal or nonfatal). We derived the national cost by multiplying the unit cost per injury times the number of acts within each combination of age, gender, and state and summed the products.
