Even though grief is a human experience many grievers feel alone. Sometimes numbers can shed light on the magnitude of grief on our society and also normalize our experience to help us see that we are not alone.
- There are 2.6 million deaths per year in the United States resulting in 13 million grievers annually averaging five grievers per death. (According to US Census Bureau) The GRM Guide for Loss
- A person dies every 15.2 minutes each day (94.8 each day).
- Somewhere between 15 and 20 percent of those who lose a loved one will experience complicated grief.
- Between 22% and 30% of college students have lost a family member or close friend within the last year (Balk, 1997; Wrenn, 1999; Balk, Walker & Baker, 2010).
- 73% of consumers had outstanding debt when they died, and carried an average total balance of $61,554, including mortgage debt.
- In a 2003 study to quantify the financial impact of grief in the workplace, The Grief Recovery Institute calculated the financial loss in productivity to businesses as just over $75 billion dollars!
- It is estimated that 73,000 children die every year in the United States. Of those children, 83 percent have surviving siblings. (Torbic, H. “Children and Grief: But what about the children?” Home Healthcare Nurse. 2011;29(2):67-79)
- More elderly (65+ years old) die by suicide than youth 14 to 24 years old (5,421 to 4,140).
- The NIH reported that more than 72,000 Americans died from drug overdoses in 2017, including illicit drugs and prescription opioids—a 2-fold increase in a decade. Source: CDC WONDER
- The CDC found in 2015 that the leading cause of death for males and females was heart disease (22.3% for female and 24.4% for males).
- In 2017, about 11.64 million widows were living in the United States whereas the number of widowers was at about 3.28 million.
- According to the CDC, there were 1,500 deaths due to SIDS in 2016.