Ending the epidemic
Signs and prevention tips for suicide
By Richard Hanners
Blue Mountain Eagle
O
regon’s suicide rate has been increasing since 2000, but
people can take proactive steps to combat it.
For many years, the state’s suicide rate ranked sev-
enth to ninth in the U.S., but the problem is getting
worse.
In 2011, twice as many Oregonians died by suicide than were
killed in vehicle crashes. According to the Oregon Violent Death
Reporting System, suicide was the eighth leading cause of death in the
state in 2012.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now regards
suicide an epidemic.
Nearly 80 percent of suicides in the U.S. are by men. The cause
is typically related to loss of self-esteem due to loss of employment,
becoming ill, losing a spouse or partner, an embarrassing public disclo-
sure or fearing loss of control. Suicide rates increase as people age, peak-
ing after 85, and suicide impacts families for years, even generations.
According to the Oregon Health Authority, a little more than half of
suicide victims in Oregon in 2012 used fi rearms, and about three-quarters
of all fi rearm deaths were suicides. About 19 percent of suicides in Oregon
that year were by poison, and another 19 percent were by hanging or suffo-
cation. Men accounted for 61 percent of suicides by fi rearm, while women
accounted for 42 percent of suicides involving poison.
Residents of rural Eastern Oregon share many of the same risk fac-
tors as other rural communities in the western states, according to
Community Counseling Solutions Clinical Director Thad Labhart —
geographical isolation, winter weather, family dynamics of denial,
abuse, neglect and separation, lack of things to do, higher rates of
gun ownership, relatively less access to mental health treatment,
low socio-economic status and stigma issues about admitting men-
tal health problems.
See Signs, Page 15
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