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Suicides decline in NYC, but inequities persist across groups

By

Jill Webb

Published Oct 25, 2026 at 10:00 a.m. ET

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By

Jill Webb

Published Oct 25, 2026 at 10:00 a.m. ET

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Newly released data on suicides in New York City shows an overall decline in deaths, according to the city health department, but also inequities persist across gender, age, race and ethnicity.

Suicide deaths fell from a peak of 601 in 2022 to 535 in 2024, according to the data. The city’s suicide rate of 5.9 deaths per 100,000 people in 2024 was less than twice the national rate of 13.7 deaths per 100,000 over the same period.

But there were inequities in the numbers:

“While there has been a decline (citywide), we continue to lose too many New Yorkers to suicide,” Dr. Alister F. Martin, the city health commissioner, said in a statement.

Dr. Barbara Trejo Ortega, a psychiatrist who runs La Clínica, an outpatient mental health program at Maimonides Health, recently discussed the new data and suicide’s toll among Latino New Yorkers, in an appearance on "All Things Considered" with host Sean Carlson.

Here’s a transcript of their conversation, edited for length and clarity.

Carlson: Doctor,  we'll talk more about your clinic in a minute, but first let's talk about that data. Why do you think city health officials are seeing this trend in Latino communities?

Trejo Ortega: We're seeing something at least similar in our clinic, not necessarily by gender, but just a general trend of the Latino population accounting for more of the suicide attempts than we should expect considering their percentage the population. A large part of it is probably social determinants of health, such as difficulty accessing things like healthcare, housing, benefits, food insecurity. There's also a role played by an anti-immigrant environment, which I think has been stressing a lot of our patients. That might be contributing also to issues with mental health.

What methods are working in getting Latino men to consider therapy?

We try to match Spanish-speaking patients with other providers who speak Spanish and share their culture. That's why we created La Clínica. I think that's helpful because, regardless of gender, I think people feel identified with their provider, and then outcomes for a patient are better if they feel connected to their provider. The other side is, we've incorporated therapy groups for men in Spanish, and some of the topics that they've been discussing is precisely this – what makes it harder or hard for men, for Latino men in general, to access care.

Why did Maimonides feel the need to establish this specialty clinic?

I think we recognize that we're in a very diverse area of Brooklyn that's very close to areas like Sunset Park, which has a really high Latino, Hispanic population. So I think partly it was the patient need and the patient volume. The other side is that we realized we had several providers who already speak Spanish and were seeing the patients who speak Spanish. So we have a team of about 14 people, including prescribers and therapists. So in a sense we kind of put two and two together and we said, we can create a space where Latino and Hispanic patients maybe feel like they belong more, and where providers can also connect with each other to help this population that I think has specific challenges.

You kind of touched on this already, but can you talk more about why it's beneficial for patients to have a mental healthcare provider who comes from a similar background and speaks the same language?

It's so important when you're sharing things that are so personal, that can be difficult to share, partly because when you feel connected to your provider, I think it's just easier to share things that are difficult. But then the other side is that if you share a cultural background or language, it also becomes easier for you to feel seen and heard and understood. So maybe the way someone describes anxiety or describes trauma might be very different in a certain setting than if someone spoke a different language, for example. I've heard this from patients themselves. They've expressed so many times that they're very appreciative of speaking to someone in Spanish or seeing someone who shares a culture.

You're about a year into this program. What have you learned about the mental healthcare needs of Latino New Yorkers?

I think in our population, we've learned that a lot of it has to do with access to care, like therapy and medication management, which of course we do. And then the other big part is access to things like social services. So I think we're working hard to work with care management to help people connect to other services like housing, food. As you can imagine, it's really hard to manage your anxiety or depression if you're also stressed about housing or immigration status or other things.

Recently a Dominican man in the Bronx was shot while being detained by ICE agents. Have patients been talking about that at all in sessions?

I haven't had patients speak about that specific incident. I think patients bring up all sorts of issues that are stressful. Sometimes it's related to whatever's happening in the news, as it relates to immigration, but I think it can vary.

And for undocumented New Yorkers, there is some concern about sharing personal information, and if you share that with a therapist, it could impact their immigration status. Does that come up at all in the clinic?

That comes up all the time. What we try to do is, we're pretty upfront with the patient about what we have to document and what has to be in the record. And then in other ways, we try to make it easier or make patients feel a little bit more comfortable in terms of coming in. For example, we'll offer a virtual appointment, which maybe mitigates a bit of the fear of having to come in person. We're very mindful of that and try to be clear with patients about what information we're sharing.

If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, you can get support by calling 988 or visiting NYC988 online.

Tagged

Health and Science

Race And Justice Unit

mental health

new york city

public health

suicide

Jill Webb

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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations

Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations

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