<p>
</p>
<p>What do you suppose is driving the increasing suicide rates?</p>
<p>Better assessment of cause of death?</p>
<p>Fewer resources available to those who need mental health treatment. (which is why I left the field, personally)</p>
<p>Availability of lethal means. Unavailability of mental health resources. Media valorizing of suicides leading to clusters.</p>
<p>Suicide attempts build on themselves. In a nearby high school, the counselor there tells me they come in clusters. One attempt and then they brace themselves for a deluge. They had four in a very short time period last year. Fortunately, none were successful.</p>
<p>In 1999 the economy was red hot. In 2008 we started the downfall of the recession. Many older Americans saw their retirement monies evaporate before their eyes along with their future. Many people in the older age range lost their jobs.</p>
<p>[Chart:</a> America’s Rising Suicide Problem | PBS NewsHour](<a href=“http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2013/05/chart-americas-rising-suicide-problem.html]Chart:”>http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2013/05/chart-americas-rising-suicide-problem.html)</p>
<p>Here is a year by year chart.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Please, could you talk more about your experience in the mental health field?</p>
<p>It’s the economy. When people lose their jobs they feel that they have little value. That coupled with the loss of their homes, their savings, it all adds up.</p>
<p>Cultural and demographic factors, possibly?</p>
<p>The leading edge of the baby boom is now mid-60s in age, and the peak birth cohort is now 54 or so. The prior generation endured a depression and WWII. The current older generation had vietnam, but really only prosperity during their formative years. More alcohol and drugs available to help with the slide into the abyss? </p>
<p>The reporting is that the “rate” is higher, but I haven’t seen the numbers. Possibly the reporters are math challenged and just the absolute numbers are higher. There is a difference.</p>
<p>Edit: here is a link to a report. It has some actual data, although there is a lot to parse through. Interestingly, there is a very large gap in the rate for white’s vs. other races. Whites are much higher. By double. The pbs article focuses on the increase in rates, but the problem is twice as severe for whites as for other groups.</p>
<p><a href=“Suicide Among Adults Aged 35–64 Years — United States, 1999–2010”>Suicide Among Adults Aged 35–64 Years — United States, 1999–2010;
<p>The economy. Loss of jobs, foreclosures.</p>
<p>Poor economy, access to firearms, mental instability and mental treatments are taboo, hyper masculinity.
The causes really aren’t a mystery.</p>
<p>Maybe because there are more people?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The rate isn’t affected by there being more people. Only the raw number would be affected by there being more people.</p>
<p>Im still going with my better recognition of cause of death, in lieu of other data.</p>
<p>For instance my father died from depression, in his early 40’s. He was currently seeing a psychiatrist & in treatment, as he had been for years.
We did not have weapons in the house.
He had a good job as a sales exec.
I don’t really know what " hypermasculinity" means, but we weren’t a sports family, my dads interests were astronomy, classical music, art & photography. ( he built a darkroom in our basement)
The autopsy report said he died of " natural causes". Despite no other health indicators at 42.</p>
<p>That report is interesting because it noted that the rate of suicide among women, including older women, is going up faster than that of men, even though men still commit suicide at a greater rate than women. </p>
<p>For centuries, suicide was stigmatized, variously, as a spiritual sin, a character weakness, or a form of selfishness. Increasingly it is seen as a symptom of mental illness or a response to pain. As the stigma fades (I’m not necessarily saying it’s a bad thing), it seems only natural that more people would consider suicide a rational response to a problem. </p>
<p>I heard a program on NPR recently about a book called “Stay,” which is a secular argument against suicide:
[The</a> Brian Lehrer Show: Reasons to Live - WNYC](<a href=“http://www.wnyc.org/story/reasons-live/]The”>Reasons to Live | The Brian Lehrer Show | WNYC)</p>
<p>I also think there is a growing lack of value for human life, and a fatalistic perspective of the future. Everything is gloom and doom. Can’t drink the water, can’t breathe the air, what is there to live for?
Not my perspective by the way, just an observation.</p>
<p>A disconnected society and individuals feeling more isolated, not feeling connected to something larger than themselves, less religion (which can provide community), more people living alone…just my 2 cents.</p>
<p>I’m with emeraldkity. There may be other factors at play, but at least some of this is simply better reporting and recordkeeping. Not so very many years ago, there was such a stigma against suicide that many suicides weren’t reported as suicides. So the suicide victim might shoot himself and it would be reported as a firearms accident, or asphyxiate himself by carbon monoxide poisoning with a car engine running in a closed garage, and it would be reported as an accidental death. There’s probably still some of this, but the stigma attached to suicide is much less, and there’s even a growing sense that suicide is a problem to be confronted, not a shameful thing to be swept under the rug, so more people are willing to report it honestly.</p>
<p>First I would want to make sure that they are measuring correctly, and there is in fact an increase in the actual rate of suicide. Next I would be curious as to the method of suicide, if there have been more of a certain type of suicide while the overall rate increased. Many would like to blame availability of guns. Well, have there been more suicide by gun vs suicide by pills or some other method? I have heard (and I believe) that the success rate of suicide is much higher with guns than with pills.(From the article: Suicide rates increased 81 percent for hanging/suffocation, compared to 14 percent for firearm and 24 percent for poisoning… so what does that mean?) It is interesting to me to see the declining role of religion mentioned as a cause of suicide. Personally, I see religion and the notion of an afterlife and a “better place” as encouraging suicide.</p>