A new study published last week sounds the alarm on a suicide crisis that is crushing rural America.
From 1999 to 2016, the suicide rate of Americans ages 25 to 64 jumped 41%, researchers noted in JAMA Network Open. The study found Americans living in rural communities had a 25% higher probability of taking their own life than those in cities.
The study, Contextual Factors Associated With County-Level Suicide Rates in the United States, 1999 to 2016, was led by Danielle Steelesmith, a postdoctoral fellow at Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center, said suicide rates have been increasing in rural America thanks to increasing poverty, low incomes, farming bust, deindustrialization, and vast amounts of underemployment.
“Those factors are really bad in rural areas,” said Steelesmith.
Steelesmith said from 1999 to 2016, there were 453,577 suicides among Americans ages 25 to 64, with the most significant amount occurring after 2010 through 2016. About 350,000 of the deaths were male, and many were middle-aged adults.
The highest observed suicide rates were in the West, including in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming; Appalachia, including counties in Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia; and the Ozarks, including counties in Arkansas and Missouri.
“Long-term and persistent poverty appears to be more entrenched and economic opportunities more constrained in rural areas. Greater social isolation, challenges related to transportation and interpersonal communication, and associated difficulties accessing health and mental health services likely contribute to the disproportionate association of deprivation with suicide in rural counties,” Steelesmith said.
The study’s social fragmentation index includes levels of single-person households, unmarried residents, and resident impermanence. High social fragmentation was associated with counties with higher suicide rates.
With the availability of guns at Walmart and the proliferation of gun shops across the Central and Midwest states over the last two decades, access to firearms in rural communities has notably driven up suicides.
Oren Miron, a researcher at the Clalit Research Institute in Israel, said the jump in suicide rates in rural counties is “alarming.”
Miron wasn’t involved in the study but said the primary factor for high suicide rates was unemployment.
Suicide “is a growing American tragedy,” Dr. Albert Wu, an internist and a professor of health policy and management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
“It has become a leading cause of death in the U.S., and is a major public health problem.”
In rural communities, “many of the most pernicious health and social problems intersect,” Wu said.
Lack of health care and mental health facilities in rural areas further compounds the problem. “Insurance can be a proxy for people’s access to mental health care,” Steelesmith said.
Wu agreed. “Lack of health insurance kills people,” he said. “More insurance, including the expansion of Medicaid, could help.”
Still, “the social determinants of health are really important,” said Dr. David Brent, the endowed chair in suicide studies and a professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh. “You can’t make a dent in these kinds of public health problems without doing something to deal with [those social determinants]. Yes, you can provide more services to impoverished people, but there’s nothing like helping people get out of poverty.”
And since the study only examined 1999-2016 suicide data, it’s likely that suicides in rural America from 2016 to present have increased, thanks to a farming bust and a manufacturing recession.
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If they would all just have been on suicide watch like Epstein.
What percentage of the guys who killed themselves were married? Seems like an important data point.
How many had dirt on the CF?
“Veterinarians are killing themselves in alarming numbers. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found male vets are 2.1 times as likely and female vets 3.5 times as likely to die by suicide compared with the general population. The much higher rate for women is especially concerning as more than 60% of vets are women.”
https://www.npr.org/2019/09/07/757822004/veterinarians-are-killing-themselves-an-online-group-is-there-to-listen-and-help
One older source says they are only ranked number 4 of professional suicides. The newer statistic above looks grim.
Medical Doctors. Odds: 1.87. Evidence suggests that doctors are approximately 1.87 times as likely …
Dentists. Odds: 1.67. Most people don’t particularly enjoy going to the dentist, but most can tough it …
Police Officers. Odds: 1.54. When most people think of police officers, they think of upstanding …
Veterinarians. Odds: 1.54. Those involved in the field of animal care as veterinarians seem to have …
See all full list on mentalhealthdaily.com
I only know of one classmate who off’d himself. A black dentist who got busted for fraud and disbarment well into his career.
I don’t get it. Suicide is higher in rural areas than the cities? I live in northern Virginia and I want to commit hari kari from the traffic alone.
Rural areas have always had easy access to guns. Curiously there’s no mention of the constant demonization of white people 24×7 in all forms of media, glamorization of porn and time-killer video games, opiod and other drug overprescriptions, turning young women away from starting families and the understanding by white guys at least on a subconscious level that the system is hopelessly fucked and the deck is stacked against them.
Wondering what percentage of those who committed suicide, were taking prescription anti depressants; and/or other drugs? How many had received commonly prescribed, highly addictive, behavior modifying drugs since childhood? How many had taken pain pills, and moved on to illegal substitutes? When will the “studies” include the elephant in the room? If poverty and guns are listed as a cause, surely Big Pharma deserves a mention in any study about suicide.
Big Pharma spends too much on research and advertising for you to ever get their involvement mentioned in any studies. Guns are bad; prescription drugs are good are the only narratives you will get out of these “studies”.
50% of all Ad revenue (according to Advertising Age Magazine).
Guns have always been available at WalMart, so have nothing to do with increased suicide rates. I bought my 2nd shotgun at TG&Y (more toys than anything else) when I was 14. Used my own money and walked out of the store with it. Did not need my parents approval (even though I did have it) and no paperwork to sign.
I just skimmed it, but the following caught my attention. Because, of course, people can’t commit suicide without guns. I decided that I didn’t need to read further.
Here it is in a nutshell as to why suicides are higher in rural areas:
“46% of Americans who live in rural parts of the country own a gun, compared with 28% of those who live in the suburbs and 19% of those in urban areas.”
Guns are extremely effective for suicide. Access to guns is highly correlated to suicide – the more guns there are, the higher the suicide rate. Guns work, poisoning oneself not nearly so much.
Rural folks have double the access to guns as those in cities. Given they have double the access, but only a 25% increase in rate, I wonder if indeed rural people overall are not far more stable.
That said, I am constantly appalled at the suicide rate in the US. I suspect given the drug/alcohol/family issues, it will continue unchanged or will even accelerate.
When the government condones the killing of 1/2 million unborn babies a year and call it a “choice”, what else do you expect from the populace? Life has been denigrated by our rulers.
I’m not going to waste time sorting through the study, but in my opinion, death from addiction to methamphetamine or fentanyl is not “suicide” however the media might like to twist the statistics.
It seems like an awfully low number to me. Less than 50,000 suicides per year in a country with 350 million people is not that bad. Sincerity of the suicides are middle aged white males I’m shocked that anyone cares at all. And as an earlier poster mentioned, if you remove drug overdoses you probably cut the number by at least 30% if not more. I don’t see how you could possibly prove that any given drug overdose was intentional unless there’s a note left behind.