New Study Documents a Rise in Suicide Among Professional Football Players

Graph illustrating no difference in prevalence of suicide between NFL and MLB or NBA players between 1979-2010. Between 2011 and 2019, NFL players were 2.6 times more likely to die by suicide.

Courtesy of the Football Players Health Study at Harvard University

By: Contributing Writer
January 13, 2026

New research, co-authored by Senior Lecturer Benjamin Anderson and published in the Journal of Neurotrauma, identifies a significant increase in the prevalence of suicide among former professional football players relative to their counterparts in professional baseball or basketball. The authors did not observe any significant statistical differences between NFL players and those in Major League Baseball (MLB) or the National Basketball Association (NBA) between 1979 and 2010. From 2011 to 2019 however, the likelihood that a former NFL player died by suicide was 2.6 times greater relative to former MLB and NBA players. The timing of the increase coincides with greater awareness of the link between playing football and developing chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). 

  • Two of the study's co-authors, Rachel Grashow and Marc Weisskopf at the Harvard Football Players Health Study, recently completed a Q&A discussing the results of the study.
  • The study's results have also been covered by ESPN.