Suicide rates in the US are on the rise: New study offers surprising reasons why : us

[–] AlbigensianGhoul@lemmygrad.ml 30 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

surprising reasons

It's the material conditions of working class Statesians again. How surprising.

I hate how suicide is treated as some mysterious issue by the bourgeois media. How hard is it to think that maybe making life easier and worth living would make more people want to stay alive?

Every time a liberal politician says "we have to be practical" about implementing basic social welfare such as higher minimum wage or universal healthcare, remember that they are explicitly weighing the amount of people who will die or kill themselves without those things.

As one author puts it:

“Suicide hotline crisis numbers and efforts to help people at the individual level are all amazing and necessary, but our work shows that higher-level, institutional interventions are also critical in addressing this crisis,” said Simon. “Giving a person a job or proper health care can also be a suicide-prevention tool.”

~~If anybody has access to the paper, could you upload it somewhere and give me a ping? I really want to read it, but it's not in the sci-hub yet.~~

Managed to get access, here's the paper in catbox.

[–] yogthos@lemmy.ml 7 points 9 months ago

Yeah, I can't say I was surprised by any of that.

[–] HeartyOfGlass@lemm.ee 25 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Skip the clickbait -

But a new CU Boulder study points to two other surprising drivers: Increased access to potentially lethal prescription opioids has made it easier for women, specifically, to end their own lives; and a shrinking federal safety net has contributed to rising suicide rates among all adults during tough economic times, the study suggests.

So easier access to lethal drugs and no social safety nets. How is this surprising?

[–] Justice@lemmygrad.ml 21 points 9 months ago (1 children)

If this is even discussed at all it will turn into some culture war bullshit when it's very obvious the solution is provide people with what they need to live (and want to live. Barely surviving isn't enough nor should it be the goal).

It's funny/crazy/sad how the answer has always been "pay better wages, more paid time off, minimize and seek to end fear of loss of basic needs for life water, food, shelter."

The US literally can't even get to stage 0. Make sure everyone has a safe, private home. And I mean a home home not a "homeless people can stay here for 7 days then they gotta move on" situation.

We have to fight the right wing, which as always includes democrats, to even provide nutritious meals to every kid. Even then if you get them, through constant shaming, to finally allow free breakfast and lunch, they purposely seek out the cheapest possible food vendors who serve slop which is barely acceptable for a dog.

We should have free, prepared food funded by taxes for everyone in every community. Not dinky soup kitchens run by volunteers and churches and stuff, which is very nice of them to do, but it just simply shouldn't work like that.

They act as if living is a privilege because they believe that. The mind and attitude of the average American is such a twisted, disgusting view of humanity and our responsibilities to ourselves and others.

[–] SoylentBlake@lemm.ee 6 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I almost wish we would balkanize, that the west coast bounces and then turn around and sue the US for crimes against humanity for the abandonment of effective governance leading to an absolutely abhorrent loss of years lived - all for (more) money - for people who absolutely don't need it.

No one's killed more Americans than the institutionalized ineffectiveness of the US Government. If the people ever find their justice, you can make sure it won't be legal. Only advice I have is divorce as much of your life as possible from the dollar. Grow food, barter, trade hours, trade favors. As soon as you bring money into any situation you immediately cheapen it.

[–] bleepingblorp@lemmygrad.ml 11 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Even with Balkanization, if the current state/city governments of West Coast states stay in power, things will still suck ass. I remember living in Seattle seeing first hand the city police point assault rifles at a group of kneeling and handcuffed homeless folks while fucks with buldozers plowed a bunch of tents plus the stuff on the tents into a pile, loading it all into a dump truck, and hauling what little those people had away to who knows where.

That was a key turning point for me... seeing the blatant violence and hate of the Democrat controlled city in the open like that. And that city is full of Sucdem Bernie types in government too. Yet they still were willing to do that...

West coast governments are garbage and all of them deserve to be blasted with cheap bullets on a wall.

[–] SoylentBlake@lemm.ee 4 points 9 months ago

Democrat - Republican

What do they have in common?

= Neoliberalism.

I understand the ire at conservative government, especially when society has ills it needs to solve (government, by its very nature, is conservative. It is conserving power in the hands of those that already hold it, de facto, elitist).

I've been all over North America. I've seen democratic strongholds (nimbyism incarnate) and I've spent good lengths of time in places that have been red longer than I've been alive.

I've seen the 3rd world wasteland that makes up half of St. Louis and the rest of the Rust Belt. I've urban explored parts of the 100sq miles of abandoned warehouses in Gary, Indiana. It's a war zone, alright, just an economic one, fought in legalese by bankers and other grifters who've never built anything material with their hands. Republicana is no better than Democrastan. Both of which has seen its institutions usurped and rendered useless by the private equity/private property wealth extraction scheme.

Neoliberalism turns the quest for profit inward, slowly, but incessently ( the real incrementalism) cannabalizing our towns of their vitality and leaving empty, hollowed out, rundown zombie economies, devoid of passion, of care, of attentiveness, of civic pride. We rinse repeat the same freeway offramp as far as the eye can see. Every small town, the same zeitgeist, the same crushing pall in the air. Over policed, every citizen comes complete with their own personal, institutionalized PTSD. The 1000yd stare is how we know our own.

If we look at the end result of small town America, we must deduce the only thing America produces is Trauma.

[–] frauddogg@lemmygrad.ml 9 points 9 months ago

and then turn around and sue the US for crimes against humanity for the abandonment of effective governance

While I can't help but feel this is so idealistic it'd never be allowed to happen, my heart aches with how badly I wish it would. I honestly just want to see the nation that ripped my family apart, scattered us to the four winds, and left us all impoverished after the intentional scuttling of Field Order 15 finally torn apart itself; however that outcome may arrive. I don't even care if I keep reincarnating into it every time I die until the Amerikan Era of Humiliation ends. I want to see every last inch of it wrack the settlers with hunger and misery.

[–] ComradePupIvy@lemmygrad.ml 22 points 9 months ago

I have read nothing, my guess is going to be Capitalism, most people are destitute, and when things get super bad its near impossible to get yourself a better lot, and ways to end your life are realitivly easy to come by, and so that choice becomes preferable

[–] Ocommie63@lemmygrad.ml 18 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Havent they been on the rise for like 20 years now, ir are they rising even faster now

[–] AlbigensianGhoul@lemmygrad.ml 14 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It's been so bad that life expectancy has been dropping since 2019, linked heavily with suicide and opioid addiction.

Best part is the only Democrat primary candidate to even mention it was Mathman Enlightened Centrist Andrew Yang of all people. Tens of thousands of people kill themselves each year, and all they get is a suicide hotline and an "I voted" sticker to "defeat Donald Trump".

[–] Trudge@lemmygrad.ml 9 points 9 months ago

Andrew "Gut Social Services" Yang was the only one who was talking about the social crisis in this nation last election cycle and nobody's even talking about it now.

Alienation of people from their social environment is so harsh that family relations look more like interaction between acquaintances, especially among white Americans. This isn't sustainable long-term.

[–] CatrachoPalestino@lemmygrad.ml 16 points 9 months ago

the social situation in america is quite bad, especially for young white males which is why after 80 year olds 25 to 35 year olds there are most likely to commit suicide, whites are most likely to commit suicide followed by native american women, and men are around 4 times more likely to commit suicide. I don't feel envious of them in the slightest

[–] leanleft@lemmy.ml 9 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

likely the economic cooling. ex: people piling on debt, car truck getting repo'd, people getting evicted or laid off or both.

[–] Omega_Haxors@lemmy.ml 8 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

"Our analysis is complete, it would appear that the problem is Capit... er, Individual responsibility!"

[–] PoY@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 9 months ago

also covid?

US News