AUSTIN – An analysis from the University of Texas System and UT Health Northeast shows that suicide rates among white Texas residents has been trending up since 2000. UT reports suicide rates for white people were more than triple the rates for white people than black black and Hispanic people in 2015.
UT said the 3,403 Texans who died from suicide in 2015 is more than double the number of people killed by homicide, and it was the leading cause of death for ages 15-24.
Recommended Videos
The author of the report, Dr. Eileen Nehme, said suicide rates in Texas have increased by 23 percent over the past 15 years.
"That overall trend obscures a lot of racial, geographic and age-related variation,” Nehme, who is also an assistant professor of epidemiology at UT Health Northeast, said. “The rates are essentially flat for black and Hispanic people. It’s the 46 percent increase in the suicide rate among white people that is almost entirely responsible for the overall increase.”
In 2013, 3.5 percent of high school students reported a suicide attempt that required medical attention in the year prior, UT said, adding that the proportion was highest among 10th-graders and lowest among seniors.
“Particularly troubling is the 3.5 percent of our kids in high school who have had to seek medical attention for suicide attempts,” said Dr. David Lakey, chief medical officer and associate vice chancellor for population health for the University of Texas System. “As parents, we know that this is a serious problem. We’re seeing it at our kids’ schools.”
In the past 15 years, rates in urban areas have consistently been higher, as the urban-rural gap appears to be widening.
The analysis also shows males are more likely to die by suicide than women, but the rates have been rising in both sexes.
“There is no one silver bullet strategy for preventing suicide, but there are multiple reinforcing approaches that have been shown to work,” said Dr. Molly Lopez, director of the Texas Institute for Excellence in Mental Health at the School of Social Work at the University of Texas at Austin. “These include universal screening for suicide risk, safety planning with those who have attempted suicide or who are at high risk and reducing access to the lethal means people might use to attempt suicide.”
A project called Zero Suicides in Texas is working with area mental health departments to implement protocols and procedures that will reduce suicide, particularly among youth.
“We know that a high percentage of those who die by suicide have been seen in the mental or physical health system in the month before their death, so that is an opportunity for intervention,” Lopez said. “We also know that many people who are served in an ER or psychiatric hospital following a suicide attempt do not go on to get outpatient care, so interventions that can be done briefly, like safety planning intervention and reducing access to lethal means, can be really important.”
The analysis also found that suicide rates are considerably higher among veterans than among the general population.
“The VA (Department of Veterans Affairs) is doing a good job of treating veterans, but the ones who aren’t using the services are the ones who are generally in the worst shape,” said Dr. Madhavi K. Reddy, an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at UTHealth in Houston and chief of psychology services at the Harris County Psychiatric Center. “The suicide rate is about 9 percent higher for veterans who use VA services, but 38-39 percent higher among those who don’t use VA services. If we intervene, or if people get help, they may be less likely to attempt or complete suicide.”
Reddy said some habits and cognitive tendencies that are adaptive to serving in the military may increase the likelihood of suicide on the homefront.
“There is some evidence that higher tolerance for pain, and less fear of death, may make it easier to take that final step,” Reddy said. “Those traits make sense for a soldier, and in some cases we train soldiers to have them. But when you pair them with other risk factors for suicide, like PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), depression, environmental stressors and certain other dispositional and cognitive biases, it may increase the risk.”
--------------------------------------------------------
Don't miss a thing. Get email alerts from KSAT12 today.
Get alerted to news events as they happen or sign up for a scheduled news headline email that is delivered right to your inbox. Breaking news, severe weather, daily forecasts, entertainment news, all of the day’s important events to keep you up to date wherever you are.
Sign up today. It's Free.