Each year, nearly three times as many Americans die from suicide as from homicide. More Americans kill themselves than die from breast cancer.
As Thomas Insel, longtime head of the National Institute of Mental Health, prepared to step down from his job in October, he cited the lack of progress in reducing the number of suicides as his biggest disappointment. While the homicide rate in the U.S. has dropped 50 percent since the early 1990s, the suicide rate is higher than it was a decade ago.
"That to me is unacceptable," Insel says.
It hasn't been for lack of trying. The U.S. has a national suicide hotline, and there are suicide prevention programs in every state. There's screening, educational programs, and midnight walks to raise awareness. Yet over the past decade or so, the national suicide rate has increased. In 2003, the suicide rate was 10.8 per 100,000 people. In 2013, it was 12.6.
An effort that began in Detroit in 2001 to treat the most common cause of suicide ā depression ā is offering hope. With a relentless focus on finding and treating people with depression, the Henry Ford Health System has cut the suicide rate among the people in its insurance plan dramatically. The story of the health system's success is a story of persistence, confidence, hope and a strict adherence to a very specific approach.
[For more of this story go to http://tpr.org/post/what-happe...gle-suicide#stream/0]
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