• Skip to main content
Search
  • Home
  • Services
      • Behavioral Health
      • Bloodless Medicine
      • Brain & Spine
      • Cancer Care
      • Ear, Nose and Throat
      • Emergency Care
      • Senior Health
      • Heart & Vascular Care
      • Home Health Care
      • Immediate Care
      • Medical Imaging
      • Minimally Invasive Surgery
      • Orthopedics
      • Pregnancy & Childbirth
      • Primary Care
      • Rehabilitation Services
      • Weight Loss Surgery
      • Wound Healing & Care
      • Women's Health
  • Doctors
      • Find a Primary Care Doctor
      • Find a Doctor
      • Physician Referral
      • Practices:

        Baptist Primary Care
      • Baptist AgeWell
      • Baptist Behavioral Health
      • Baptist Endocrinology
      • Baptist ENT Specialists
      • Baptist Heart Specialists
      • Baptist Infectious Diseases
      • Baptist MD Anderson Cancer Physicians
      • Baptist Neurology
      • Baptist Pediatrics
      • Baptist Pulmonary Specialists (Nassau)
      • Baptist Rheumatology
      • Baptist Urology Group (Nassau)
      • Jacksonville Orthopaedic Institute
      • Lyerly Neurosurgery
  • Locations
    • Our Hospitals:

      • Baptist Medical Center Jacksonville
      • Baptist Medical Center South
      • Baptist Medical Center Beaches
      • Baptist Medical Center Nassau
      • Baptist Heart Hospital
      • Wolfson Children's Hospital

      Emergency Rooms (ER):

      • All ER Locations

      Imaging:

      • By Location

      • Imaging Center Locations
      • By Service

      • MRI
      • Bone Density
      • Screening Mammography
      • Diagnostic Mammography
      • Ultrasound
      • Vascular Ultrasound
      • CT Scan
      • PET Scan
      • Nuclear Medicine
      • X-Ray

      Urgent Care Locations:

      • Baptist Health Clinics at Walgreens
      • CareSpot Urgent Care

      Outpatient Locations:

      • AgeWell Center for Senior Health
      • Baptist Clay Medical Campus
      • Baptist MD Anderson Cancer Center
      • Baptist Neurodiagnostic Center
      • Baptist North Medical Campus
      • Heart and Vascular Testing Centers
      • Hill Breast Center
      • Infusion Center
      • Pharmacy
      • Rehabilitation Centers
      • Robotic Spine Surgery
      • Sleep Centers
      • Stroke and Cerebrovascular Center
      • Surgery Centers
      • Wound Care

      Health & Wellness:

      • 4her Wellness Resources for Women
      • JCA Wellness Connexion
      • Y Healthy Living Centers
  • Patient Info
      • Billing & Insurance Information
      • Insurance Plans Accepted
      • Cost Estimate Request
      • Financial Assistance Program
      • My Baptist Connect (Patient Portal)
      • Medical Records
      • Classes and Events
      • Clinical Trials
      • Tell Us What You Think
  • Health Library
      • Diseases and Conditions
      • Symptoms
      • Tests
      • Surgeries and Procedures
      • Injuries
      • Nutrition
      • Poison
      • Drug Information
      • Drug Images
      • Health News
      • Video Library
  • About Us
      • Administration
      • Awards & Honors
      • Careers
      • Provider Opportunities
      • Baptist MD Anderson Provider Opportunities
      • Spiritual Care
      • Social Responsibility
      • Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA)
      • Corporate Wellness (PATH)
      • Volunteering
      • Newsroom
  • Juice
      • Health News Overview:

      • Aging Well
      • Brain, Spine & Nerve
      • Cancer
      • Child Health
      • Community Health
      • Diabetes
      • Ear, Nose & Throat
      • Heart & Vascular
      • Lungs, Breathing & Sleep
      • Mental Health
      • Orthopedics, Bones & Muscles
      • Pregnancy & Childbirth
      • Primary Care
      • Wellness
      • Women's Health
      • Men's Health
  1. Home
  2. Health Library
  3. Health News
  4. Suicide Becoming All Too Common in U.S.

Suicide Becoming All Too Common in U.S.

FRIDAY, Sept. 6, 2019 (HealthDay News) -- Suicide continues to become more common in the United States, with rural areas hit hardest by this ongoing crisis of despair, a new study reports.

Deprivation, isolation and lack of access to mental health care all appear to be driving the crisis in rural America, said lead researcher Danielle Steelesmith. She's a postdoctoral fellow at Ohio State University's Wexner Medical Center in Columbus.

"Rural suicide rates are higher than urban rates and tend to be increasing a little more rapidly," Steelesmith said.

Suicide rates increased 41% between 1999 and 2016, from a median of 15 per 100,000 people to more than 21 per 100,000, county-by-county data show. Median means half had higher rates; half were lower.

Rural folks tend to be at higher risk than city dwellers, the researchers found.

Suicide rates were 22 per 100,000 in rural counties between 2014 and 2016, compared with about 18 per 100,000 in large metropolitan counties, the nationwide data revealed.

To figure out the difference between rural and urban areas, the researchers did a county-by-county analysis of factors that could be driving suicide rates.

"Deprivation" -- a cluster of factors that includes low employment, poverty and lack of education -- was closely related to increased rural suicide rates, the study authors said.

Steelesmith said poverty could be more entrenched and economic opportunities more limited in rural areas, leaving residents feeling helpless.

Mayo Clinic psychiatrist Dr. J. Michael Bostwick noted that the highest suicide rates found in the study occurred in the Mountain West, Appalachia and the Ozarks.

"The communities that are more likely to be suffering rurally are the ones that are still committed to mining or farming," Bostwick said. "Information technology, alternative energy and automation may have bypassed rural communities in favor of metropolitan communities."

Residents of rural America also appear to be more isolated, which increases suicide risk, the researchers noted.

And rural regions tend to have more social fragmentation, with more single-member households, unmarried residents and people drifting in and out of the area, according to the report.

These regions also have lower levels of social capital, a measure of the interconnectedness of people through churches, groups and organizations, Steelesmith said.

Both social fragmentation and lack of social capital were associated with higher suicide rates, the findings showed.

Rural residents struggling with depression or suicidal thoughts also are less able to get help, either because they aren't insured or the area lacks mental health professionals.

These people face a "double whammy" of few therapists around, along with a lack of solid suicide-prevention training in the mental health professionals who are available, said Mitch Prinstein, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

"If you actually do get lucky enough to get in the office of a trained mental health provider, they aren't necessarily going to be trained in effective approaches for reducing suicide," he said. "Right now, mental health treatment is much more available for folks in urban and suburban areas. It's almost impossible to access in our most rural areas of the country."

Expanding access to mental health services, possibly through telemedicine, could help reduce suicide rates in rural areas, Steelesmith suggested.

One factor that drove urban suicide rates but not rural was the number of gun shops in an area.

Firearms shops increase access to guns and make suicide more viable to troubled people, Bostwick said.

"Rural areas are saturated with firearms already, so gun shops don't make a difference," he said. "But when you open a gun shop in a part of a city that doesn't have one, access is increased and rates go up."

Prinstein and Bostwick differ in how they see America's rising suicide rates.

"We really need to start talking about suicide like the public health crisis that it is, the same way we talk about flu shots in every drug store, and we talk about sexual risk being discussed in every school and community health clinic," Prinstein said. "When the percentages are this high, this needs to be something that's part of the public discourse in the same way we talk about sex and drugs."

But Bostwick noted that rates are actually relatively low, with 21 suicides for every 100,000 people.

"I don't mean to minimize the significance of any individual suicide, but it is still a pretty rare event," he said.

Bostwick added that today's suicide rates are similar to those in the early 1990s, and appear to be part of an up-and-down cycle taking place in the United States for at least the past century.

The new study was published online Sept. 6 in JAMA Network Open.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about preventing suicide.

SOURCES: Danielle Steelesmith, Ph.D., postdoctoral fellow, Wexner Medical Center, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio; J. Michael Bostwick, M.D., psychiatrist, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn.; Mitch Prinstein, Ph.D., professor of psychology and neuroscience, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Sept. 6, 2019, JAMA Network Open, online

Daily Health and Medical News

  • Babies May 'See' Light While in the Womb
    December 03, 2019

  • Uncontrolled Asthma a Danger to Pregnant Women, Babies
    December 03, 2019

  • Are E-Scooters a Quick Ticket to the ER?
    December 03, 2019

  • Taking Several Prescription Drugs May Trigger Serious Side Effects
    December 03, 2019

  • AHA News: Vegan Diet May Decrease Heart Disease, Stroke Risk in African Americans
    December 03, 2019

© Copyright 2019 | All Rights Reserved

If you speak another language, assistance services
free of charge, are available to you.

Baptist Health Facebook Baptist Health Twitter Baptist Health on LinkedIn Baptist Health on Instagram Baptist Health on Youtube
Physician Login | Application Login | Employee Login
Quality Measures | Privacy | Non-Discrimination | Comments | Site Map