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 Nearly 38,000 working-age Americans died by suicide in 2017, raising
the overall national suicide rate to 18 deaths per 100,000 people
from 12.9 in 2000, the study team notes. In 2016, though, the new
analysis found suicide rates among men in mining and extraction
industries to be at 54.2 per 100,000 and at 45.3 per 100,000 in
construction.
In total, researchers identified five major industries and six
groups of occupations with suicide rates notably higher than the
national average for both men and women.
The authors hope to prompt further research into the reasons behind
the high rates, and into prevention efforts that could be tailored
to different types of workplace, they write in the Morbidity and
Mortality Weekly Report from the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC).
"The workplace is an important place for suicide prevention efforts
because it is where many adults spend a great deal of their time,"
lead author Cora Peterson of the CDC's National Center for Injury
Prevention and Control said in an email.
Low-skilled work, lower education and socioeconomic status, access
to lethal means at the workplace, job insecurity and stress have
previously been found to contribute to increased risk of suicide,
experts say.
In a prior study of 2015 data from 17 states, the authors also found
mining/extraction and construction had the top suicide rates for
men.
The current study, which used 2016 data from the CDC's National
Violent Death Reporting System, examined more than 15,700 deaths
among working people aged 16 to 64. Researchers calculated separate
rates for men and women because too few women were represented in
the data for some occupations to derive a rate.
In addition to extraction industries and construction, high suicide
rates were seen among men in automotive repair and other maintenance
services, with 39.1 deaths per 100,000. Agriculture, forestry,
fishing and hunting had a 36.1 per 100,000 rate among men, and the
transportation and warehousing industry had a rate of 29.8 for men
and 10.1 for women.
For women, construction, healthcare support and protective services
that include firefighters, security screeners, jailers and
lifeguards had the highest suicide rates overall, with a range of
25.5 to 10.6 deaths per 100,000 workers. That compares to a national
average of 7.7 suicide deaths per 100,000 women.
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Although it's already known that suicide rates vary by industry and
occupation, the study results could help inform targeted
suicide-prevention strategies for people in different occupations,
said Lorann Stallones, a psychology professor at Colorado State
University in Fort Collins who wasn't involved in the study.
"You can reach people in different ways, with probably similar
messages in terms of trying to help people. But how you get to them
is where you have to carefully think through the targeting,"
Stallones said in a phone interview.
"(With) construction workers you would want to have a very different
approach than if you were talking about artists or musicians," she
added.
As an example, Mona Shattell of Johns Hopkins School of Nursing in
Baltimore said, long-haul truck drivers could greatly benefit from
interventions such as having access to health clinics at truck
stops.
"There's so much stress and pressure on drivers to get their load to
the destination on time . . . They say taking time out for
healthcare is not necessarily a priority," Shattell, who wasn't
involved in the study, said in a phone interview.
The study team points to resources developed specifically for
workplaces, available online from the nonprofit group Workplace
Suicide Prevention (https://bit.ly/3btEsWv) and the National Action
Alliance for Suicide Prevention (https://bit.ly/31N0A9H).
Stallones and Shattell said addressing the stigma around mental
health and wellbeing is the first step to lowering the risk of
suicide, as many employees may not want to admit to feeling
depressed, anxious or suicidal on concerns of how they may be
perceived by others at work.
"If we could train more people to be comfortable, I think there
might be more opportunity to intervene," Stallones said.
SOURCE: https://bit.ly/2OfrCkG Morbidity and Mortality Weekly
Report, online January 24, 2020.
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