White Baby Boomers Cause Rise in National Suicide Rate

[Liberal_in_LA]

By Crystal Phend, Staff Writer, MedPage Today

Published: October 21, 2008

Reviewed by Robert Jasmer, MD; Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco

http://www.medpagetoday.com/Psychiatry/GeneralPsychiatry/11385

BALTIMORE, Oct. 21 -- Suicide rates have been slowly rising over the past decade largely because of a surprising increase among middle-age whites, researchers found.

The overall suicide rate rose 0.7% per year from 1999 to 2005, primarily because of the 3.0% increase per year among whites age 40 to 64, reported Susan P. Baker, M.P.H., of Johns Hopkins, and colleagues online ahead of the December print issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

This trend in a national database marks a reversal from falling suicide mortality over the prior decade, an 18% total drop from 1986 to 1999, they noted.

Whites were the only racial or ethnic group to show a significant increase in suicide since 1999 (1.1% per year, P<0.05). Rates decreased for blacks (-1.1% per year, P<0.05) and remained stable for native Americans. Action Points
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Explain to interested patients that the study showed a see-saw swing in overall suicide trends in the U.S.-from an increase in the 1980s to a decrease in the 1990s and back to increase since 1999.


Note that the study could not determine whether the increase in suicide reflected an increase in attempts or in the lethality of the attempts.

[John Q. Citizen]

1. The suicide trend seems to follow the Repos in power trends.

hmmm...

[NeoTheo]

2. Ut uh, that's my age group

I think it has mainly to do with this is the age group that is starting to realize, "We're Fucked".

[Franzia]

3. Mid-life crisis is an unlikely candidate, Baker's group said.

"Recent sociologic studies of the middle-aged find that, for most, it is a time of relative security and emotional well-being."

Not anymore...

[skooooo]

8. mid-life? Most boomers are past mid-life.

[Franzia]

9. True. These statistics refer to the 'post boom' generation, now in midlife,

which they have erroneously identified as boomers.

[Warpy]

4. Corporate expiration date

It used to be 55. Now it's going down and for some professions, engineers the most notorious, it can be in the 30s.

Once you pass your corporate expiration date, you can resign yourself to a patchwork of low paid, dead end jobs with no benefits until you die of something preventable or curable.

Given that bleak outlook, it's no wonder some folks are choosing to exit.

[endarkenment]

5. We just aren't all that scared of dying.

That was my take on this when I first started hearing about it. Those of us who didn't climb aboard the Amnesia Bus, that is. Those of us who retained that streak of stubborn independent do your own thing flower child hippy peace and love boomer fierceness are willing to check out on our own terms.

[SmokingJacket]

6. 40 yr olds aren't baby boomers.

1968 was NOT in the baby boom!

I wish the media would stop using the term to designate "middle-agish people."

[SmokingJacket]

7. You'd think with so many more people being treated for depression...

you'd think it would go in the opposite direction...