This morning’s Arizona Republic had an uncomfortable article
about a topic none of us likes to discuss – suicide.
I’ve written about this topic a couple of times before (see
below) , but this morning’s article (which I have paraphrased below the other
two links) adds a couple of additional facts.
America’s suicide rate won’t stop rising.
Numbers released Thursday from the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention show 48,344 people died by suicide
in 2018, up from 47,173 the year before. While the increase was small, just
two-tenths of a percent, the rise in deaths over time has been steady. Since
1999, the suicide rate has climbed 35%.
Death rates in 2018 increased for only two of the
10 leading causes of death: suicide and influenza/pneumonia.
Suicide is the nation’s
10th-leading cause of death, with 14.2 deaths per 100,000 people, though that
rate alone belies the scope of the problem. While thousands of people die by
suicide each year, millions think about it. In 2017, 10.6 million American
adults seriously thought about suicide, 3.2 million made a plan, and 1.4
million attempted it, according to the CDC.
The complete list of the leading
causes of death is listed below.
Since 1899, there have only been 8 years when more than 48,344
people died from car accidents. In the most recent year (2018) the number of
motor vehicle deaths was 35,560. The drop in motor vehicles deaths is due to
(1) safer vehicles and (2) stricter drunk driving laws.
The drop in motor vehicle deaths, however, has been offset by
the INCREASE in the number of overdose deaths. In the most recent year
available (2017) 70,237 people died from
drug overdoses, far more than the number of people who died from suicide. Since
drug overdoses are not listed in the “top ten” list of the CDC, it’s safe to
assume that the vast majority fall into the “accidental” category.
https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates
https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates
Far too often, many people assume that if a well-known
celebrity dies of a drug overdose, it is sure to be a suicide, which was the
assumption when Tom Petty died a couple of years ago. The truth, though, can be
found at the link below:
Michael Jackson suffered many of the same ailments as Tom
Petty. In his case, his personal physician (Conrad Murray) simply gave him too
many drugs, and ultimately was charged
with a homicide. 7 years after his death, his estate earned his estate earned $825 million, the highest
yearly amount for a celebrity ever recorded by Forbes.
Some suspect a lack of funding is
to blame. Money to research and combat suicide continues to lag behind other
leading killers. The National Institutes of Health, the largest public funder
of biomedical research in the world, spent $103 million on suicide and suicide
prevention in 2017. It spent $689 million that year studying breast cancer,
which killed only a few thousand more people. In 2018, spending on suicide
increased to $147 million.
Some experts say reducing the
suicide rate won’t occur without examining the environments people live in or
larger societal ills, such as economic insecurity and discrimination that may
drive people to despair. Survivors agree.
For example, a study published last month in the
Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health found that increasing the minimum
wage by $1 could reduce the suicide rate among workers with a high school
degree or less, especially when unemployment rates are higher. Being unemployed
or living in poverty can increase the risk of suicide, according to the CDC.
This month, the American Foundation for Suicide
Prevention announced it had moved into “Phase II of Project 2025,” which aims
to reduce the suicide rate by 20% over 10 years. The plan is focused on four
areas: firearms, health care systems, emergency departments and corrections
systems.
It's always a shock to learn of the death of a friend or
relative (as my wife and I did just two weeks ago), but it is especially tragic
when the death is caused by suicide. The vast majority of us will never lose
someone we know to suicide – but I have. The story of Dan’s death is detailed
in the article listed above that I published in June of 2018.
Although 70,000 suicides a year sounds high, it’s actually a
bit surprising that the number of suicides is not higher.
Anxiety disorders are the most
common mental illness in the U.S., affecting 40 million adults in the United
States age 18 and older, or 18.1% of the population every year.
It's not uncommon for someone
with an anxiety disorder to also suffer from depression or vice versa. Nearly
one-half of those diagnosed with depression are also diagnosed with an anxiety
disorder.
Even people who seem to be
happy can actually be depressed, and Robin Williams is the most recent example
of that phenomenon.
If you, or someone you know, is suffering from anxiety and
depression, my closing comment is this:
Relax. Tomorrow is another day, and you’ll be fine.
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