20%
The percentage by which Veterans living in rural areas have a higher risk of dying by suicide than Veterans who live in urban areas, according to an article recently published in the journal Psychological Services -- A menu of options: Resources for preventing veteran suicide in rural communities.
In 2015, the National Center for Health Statistics found that in the U.S. alone, 9.8 million adults endorsed having serious suicidal thoughts, and 1.3 million adults reported a suicide attempt during the past year (World Health Organization). Suicide experts advocate for restricting access to lethal means as an effective strategy to reduce suicide rates. In this blog, I plan to review the efficacy of reducing access to various lethal means.
The struggle to understand a friend’s suicide was illustrated for me again recently when a friend posted this on Facebook, “I have no words right now, except pain for finding out that I lost a good friend and amazing soldier to suicide this morning.” Reading through the comments of his post someone mentioned the deceased being free of pain. My friend’s response was, “but what about everyone else’s pain now?” I think that speaks volumes about the heartbreak of suicide.
As part of CDP's spotlight on suicide prevention in the month of September, we will be presenting a series of hour-and-a-half long webinars. Each of these free webinars will be led by guest subject matter expert presenters and will focus on an aspect of suicide or suicide prevention. The events will be held on Thursdays, throughout the month, from noon to 1:30 p.m. We invite those interested to register for any or all of the events below by clicking on the titles or by visiting the Suicide Prevention Webinar Series page here.
135