Understanding suicide warning signs and risk factors can help identify those at risk, allow for early intervention, and prevent suicide. Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Month (September) serves as a way to promote psychological health and suicide awareness and prevention. In this paper we will discuss about suicide only and not expand to mental health.

Suicide is one of the leading causes of death in the United States.

Suicide is death caused by injuring oneself with the intent to die. A suicide attempt is when someone harms themselves with any intent to end their life, but they do not die as a result of their actions.
Many factors can increase the risk for suicide or protect against it. Suicide is connected to other forms of injury and violence. For example, people who have experienced violence, including child abuse, bullying, or sexual violence have a higher suicide risk. Being connected to family and community support and having easy access to healthcare can decrease suicidal thoughts and behaviors.

Magnitude of the Suicide Problem:

Many adults think about suicide or attempt suicide. 13.2 million seriously thought about suicide. 3.8 million planned for suicide, 1.6 million of them attempted suicides. In Arizona, suicide rate has consistently increased over years and in 2021 (last data available) showed suicide rate of 19.5/10,000 population totaling to 1475 deaths by suicide. See figure 2 for relative rates of suicide by States.

The suicide rate among males in 2022 was approximately four times higher than the rate among females. Males make up 50% of the population but nearly 80% of suicides. Rate among male is 23.5/100,000 population while among women it is 5.9/100,000 population.

Suicide rate by Age:

Suicide rate is the highest among very old citizens followed by citizens in the age group of 25 to 45 years of age (See figure 3).

In 2022, suicide was among the top 9 leading causes of death for people ages 10-64. Suicide was the second leading cause of death for people ages 10-14 and 25-34. Adults aged 35–64 years account for 46.8% of all suicides in the United States, and suicide is the 8th leading cause of death for this age group. Suicide rates in the young age group of 10-24 has increased by 52% in last 20 years. In 2021, 9% of high school students reported attempting suicide during the previous 12 months. Suicide attempts were reported most frequently among girls compared to boys (12.4% vs. 5.3%) and among non-Hispanic American Indian or Alaska Native students (20.1%)

Suicide risk is higher among people who identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual

Data are limited on frequency of suicide among people who identify as sexual minorities. However, research shows that high school students who identify as sexual minorities have a higher prevalence of suicide attempts compared to heterosexual students. 

In 2021, more than a quarter (26.3%) of high school students identifying as lesbian, gay, or bisexual reported attempting suicide in the prior 12 months. This was five times higher than the prevalence among heterosexual students (5.2%)

Data from 2020 show the prevalence of individuals reporting suicide attempts in the prior 12 months among adult sexual minorities decreased with age, from 5.5% among people ages 18-25 to 2.2% among people ages 26-49

How do people commit suicide? 

Be it suicide or homicide, firearms top the list and is number 1 method of committing suicide followed accounting for 50%by followed by suffocation, poisoning and other methods (See figure 4)

What Factors Contribute to Suicide?

A range of factors—at the individual, relationship, community, and societal levels—can increase suicide risk. These risk factors are situations or problems that can increase the possibility that a person will attempt suicide. These are just pointers, and each individual has his/her unique reasons for attempting suicide. 

• Individual Risk Factors include, previous suicide attempt, history of depression and other mental illnesses, serious illness such as chronic pain, criminal/legal problems and issues, job/financial problems or loss, impulsive or aggressive tendencies, substance use, current or prior history of adverse childhood experiences, sense of hopelessness, violence victimization. 
• Relationship Risk Factors include bullying, family/loved one’s history of suicide, loss of relationships, high conflict or violent relationships, social isolation etc.
• Community Risk Factors include lack of access to healthcare, suicide cluster in the community, stress of acculturation, community violence, historical trauma, discrimination etc.
• Societal Risk Factors include stigma associated with help-seeking and mental illness, easy access to lethal means of suicide among people at risk, unsafe media portrayals of suicide etc. 

What Factors protect against suicide risk?

A range of factors at the individual, relationship, community, and societal levels can protect people from suicide. We can act in communities and as a society to support people and help protect them from suicidal thoughts and behavior. The month of September is the focus month to do that and so this article comes to you from my efforts to create awareness and contribute what best we can as individuals or as community groups. 

A range of factors at the individual, relationship, community, and societal levels can protect people from suicide. We can act in communities and as a society to support people and help protect them from suicidal thoughts and behavior.

• Individual Protective Factors include effective coping and problem-solving skills, reasons for living (for example, family, friends, pets, etc.), strong sense of cultural identity etc.
• Relationship Protective Factors include support from partners, friends, and family, feeling connected to others etc.
• Community Protective Factors include feeling connected to school, community, and other social institutions, availability of consistent and high quality physical and behavioral healthcare etc.
• Societal Protective Factors include reduced access to lethal means of suicide among people at risk. 

At Asian Pacific Community in Action, we are very conscious and always ready to help each other and to the community at large. For our internal discussion, we have established following group agreements, some of them are mentioned below reflecting our approach within ourselves and to the community we serve at large. 

Group Agreements: 

• Don’t be afraid to set boundaries
• Be open to disagreements and discussions 
• Listen to understand first, confirm what you think you hear to clarify the intention and the information, then respond
• Communicate by language – not by tone
• Respect how people process information differently 
• There is no place for rudeness or bullying 
• Self-care is paramount 

APCA is hosting a new event to help support our community in mental health.

Save the Date! Saturday 11/16/24, Looking Up: An Asian Pacific Mental Health Community Gathering, to be held in a central location in the valley, details TBD, please email info@apcaaz.org or call 602-265-4598 for more information and stay tuned for details!