Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Rise In Suicides Causes Alarm
The Washington Post: Rise In Suicides Prompted By Pandemic Is Met With Lack Of U.S. Action
America’s system for monitoring suicides is so broken and slow that experts won’t know until roughly two years after the pandemic whether suicides have risen nationally. But coroners and medical examiners are already seeing troubling signs. In Arizona’s Pima County, officials have sent two health bulletins alerting doctors and hospitals to spikes in suicides. In Oregon’s Columbia County, the number of suicides by summer had already surpassed last year’s total. In the sprawling Chicago suburbs, DuPage County has reported a 23 percent rise compared with last year. And in the city itself, the number of suicides among African Americans has far surpassed the total for 2019, even as officials struggle to understand whether the deaths are being driven by the pandemic, racial unrest or both. What has shocked medical examiners in Chicago is the age range — from a 57-year-old deputy police chief to a 9-year-old child. (Wan, 11/23)
Also —
Wyoming Public Radio: Legislative Committee Moves Forward On Mandating Suicide Prevention Training For K-12 Students
The state legislature's Joint Education Committee has moved forward with a bill that would require school districts to provide suicide prevention training to students. The Jason Flatt Act already requires Wyoming teachers and administrators to undergo training of suicide prevention every four years, but has no training requirements for students. (Kudelska, 11/23)
Morristown Daily Record: 'Talking About It Saves Lives': Suicide Survivor With Multiple Sclerosis Shares Her Story
Chloe Bellerby had her first panic attack the day before her 16th birthday. Disappointed with how she played in a soccer match, Bellerby recalled how "all those years of bottled up emotions came exploding out of me." Since she was 11, Bellerby had been cutting her skin, binging and purging, and even thinking about suicide. She'd been wearing long sleeves and long pants, even in the summer, but not even her parents raised questions. On Aug. 21, 2016, a Sunday night, Bellerby left her house and took "100 pills I had in my pocket" with a bottle of water. It was the first time she had disclosed the mental illness which had plagued her almost half her young life. (Havsy, 11/24)
KEZI.com: Oregon Baseball Commit Plans To Strike Out Suicide
Churchill senior Carson Lydon committed to play baseball at Oregon next year. It's been a dream of his since he was a little leaguer. “Since I was a little kid all I’ve wanted to do was be a professional baseball player," Lydon said. But for Lydon, the game of baseball comes secondary to the game of life. “On February 14th, 2017, I lost my friend Will Manstrom-Greening to suicide," Lydon said. "Shortly after that I fell into a deep state of depression and suicidal actions as well. “ ... It prompted Lydon to start A World Free of Suicide, a non-profit organization to help spread suicide prevention awareness. (Mininsohn, 11/23)
The New York Times: Can An Algorithm Prevent Suicide?
At a recent visit to the Veterans Affairs clinic in the Bronx, Barry, a decorated Vietnam veteran, learned that he belonged to a very exclusive club. According to a new A.I.-assisted algorithm, he was one of several hundred V.A. patients nationwide, of six million total, deemed at imminent risk of suicide. The news did not take him entirely off guard. Barry, 69, who was badly wounded in the 1968 Tet offensive, had already made two previous attempts on his life. “I don’t like this idea of a list, to tell you the truth — a computer telling me something like this,” Barry, a retired postal worker, said in a phone interview. He asked that his surname be omitted for privacy. (Carey, 11/23)
