"Suicide - in all ages except for young children and the elderly - is one of the few conditions that's getting worse instead of better around the country," Anne Schuchat told "Rising" Hill.TV co-hosts Krystal Ball and Buck Sexton.
Suicide is a leading cause of death in the U.S.
Nearly 45,000 Americans have lost their lives to suicide in 2016, and suicide rates have spiked more than 30 percent in half of states across the country since 1999, according to the CDC.
Schuchat emphasized that suicide is not only a result of mental health conditions, even though they're often seen as a contributing cause. The CDC reported that more than half of people who committed suicide did not have a known mental health condition.
"A lot of people don't have a prior diagnosis of depression or other mental health conditions and so if you know someone that you're worried about, there are ways to reach out for help - there's help lines that can help you if you're having questions yourself or if you're worried about someone you love," she told Hill.TV, adding that there can be a number of risk factors, including stressors like finances and employment.
Schuchat said the organization is also starting to see an overlap between suicides and the opioid epidemic in middle aged adults.
"We made great strides in last century in extending life expectancy and now we're seeing these premature deaths, these earlier deaths from suicide, from drug overdose, from liver failure," she said.
In 2017, the U.S. Health & Human Health Services declared the opioid crisis as a public health emergency, and announced a five-point plan to combat the epidemic.
But Trump's opioid plan has been met with mixed reviews from both experts and lawmakers alike.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has called Trump's efforts "pathetic" and that they've fallen "far short of what is needed."
"Time and time again you and your Administration have failed to take the actions needed to meaningfully address this crisis. Instead, you have continued to substitute empty words and broken promises for real action and bold ideas," Warren wrote in a fiery letter to President Trump.
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