Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2006 | 7:48 a.m.
Finally, a holiday story about suicide that isn't grim.
The Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania has been debunking the suicide myth lately. Using data from the National Center for Health Statistics, the center found that the lowest number of suicides occurred in November and December and the highest numbers were usually around March and June.
"You would think that with shorter days and less light, people would be more depressed. But it has the opposite effect on suicide," said Dan Romer, director of the Adolescent Risk Communication Institute at the Annenberg center.
It goes against the commonly held belief that people take their lives during Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years at a higher rate than during the traditionally cheerier spring and summer months.
Suicide experts in Nevada found a similar trend.
"It makes sense that the holidays are a time of sadness for some people who might have experienced a loss or are depressed, but the statistics show that the number of suicides is actually down during the holidays," said Linda Flatt, chairwoman of the Nevada Coalition for Suicide Prevention.
In Clark County this year, the highest number of suicides occurred in March, with 37 people taking their lives in that month. Twenty people committed suicide in December and 24 in January.
In general, people tend to believe that the winter months are the most miserable. The days are shorter and colder, and family holidays like Christmas add stress to people's lives. But those factors, in a way, may help explain why the suicide rates are lower in November and December, said Misty Vaughan Allen, the state's suicide prevention coordinator.
"During the holidays, you are often surrounded by others. You are not isolated as much, and may not follow through" with a suicide, she said, adding that during the winter months people's energy levels are lower, and that too may hinder someone from taking their life.
But that often changes as the weather begins to warm up and the holiday season ends. People may be more isolated from their friends and family during this time. And as the weather changes, "everyone's energy is increasing, and someone thinking about suicide might have more energy to follow through with it," Vaughan Allen said.
For years, Nevada has had one of the nation's highest suicide rates. It stood at 19.5 per 100,000 people in 2002, nearly double the national rate and fourth highest among states.
But Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie, D-Reno, sees that as a sign of progress. Nevada had been home to the nation's highest suicide rate. But since the governor approved funding for a statewide suicide hotline in 1999, rates have been slowly declining, she said.
"We're very hopeful that we will see a continuing decrease in suicide rates in Nevada. Between 1999 and now, we have dropped to the fourth highest suicide rate in the nation," Leslie said.
"Only in Nevada would you be cheering about that," she said.
There is one last gem that the Annenberg center found: Newspapers may be partly to blame for the misconception that suicide rates are higher in the winter. In the past, newspapers tended to write stories that said more people killed themselves during the winter holidays than at any other time.
"We don't know how it started, but (newspapers) are following up on this myth that there are more suicides during the winter months," Romer said. "They are talking to sources who reinforce this myth."
The Annenberg center reviewed 128 news stories in 1999 about holiday suicides and found that 60 percent of stories supported the myth while 17 percent actually debunked it.
But the trend is changing. The center reviewed 44 stories from 2004 and found that only 30 percent continued the myth and 36 percent sought to disprove it. The remaining 31 percent said the link was coincidental.
"We did press releases two years in a row and there were still plenty of stories that repeated the myth. We decided that journalists don't read," he joked.
Suicides in Clark County by month
David Kihara can be reached at 259-2330 or at [email protected].
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