Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
The People Behind Suicide Hotlines
CNN: When Someone Is Thinking Of Suicide, These Are The People Who Talk Them Out Of It
The caller on the line is agitated. Minutes earlier, he'd grabbed a knife and held it to his body, threatening to kill himself. Staffers at the group home where he lives wrestled it away, but he still feels like he wants to do himself harm. So he calls a suicide hotline. A crisis counselor named Aaron answers. He listens intently. "Hey, you feeling any better?" Aaron asks after a minute. "Well, just try to hang out with the staff there, OK? Can you stay there with them?" (Criss, 9/10)
USA Today: World Suicide Prevention Day: Child Suicides Rising; Reasons Unclear
Samantha Kuberski hanged herself with a belt from a crib. She was 6.Razy Sellars was 11 when he took his life. Gabriel Taye was 8. Jamel Myles was 9. Suicide in elementary school-aged children remains rare: 53 children aged 11 and younger took their lives in 2016, the last year for which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has data. But medical professionals and researchers have noted alarming increases in the last decade – deaths more than doubled from 2008 to 2016 – and rising numbers of young children visiting emergency rooms for suicidal thoughts and attempts. (O'Donnell, 9/10)
CNN: Among Teens, Transgender Males Are Most Likely To Attempt Suicide, Study Says
Gender identity strongly influences the likelihood a teen will attempt suicide, a new study finds. Nearly 14% of teens who participated in a survey reported trying to kill themselves, with transgender teens reporting the highest rates of suicide attempts. Among female to male teens, the language the study uses for transgender male teens, more than half (50.8%) said they'd tried to take their lives, according to the study, published Tuesday in the journal Pediatrics. (Scutti, 9/11)
CBS News: 1 In 5 College Students So Stressed They Consider Suicide
College can be so stressful that many students think about killing themselves, and some even try, a new study suggests. Among more than 67,000 students surveyed, over 20 percent said they experienced stressful events in the last year that were strongly associated with mental health problems, including harming themselves and suicidal thoughts or attempts, researchers found. (Reinberg, 9/10)
The Oregonian: Portland Mental Health Center Failed To Stop Suicide After Problems Surfaced, Report Says
A patient died by suicide at the Unity Center for Behavioral Health two months after state investigators informed the psychiatric hospital that it was failing to safeguard patients, according to findings from the latest inspection released Monday. The suicide and other problems illustrate the Unity Center's seeming slowness to fix serious lapses. (Harbarger, 9/10)
