Elderly suicides: a need for prevention.
Every 18 minutes a life is lost to suicide. Approximately every hour and a half, an elderly adult age 65 and over takes his/her life by suicide. Despite a decline in the rate of suicides over the past several years, suicides by elderly white males remains high. This paper provides a descriptive epidemiology of elderly suicides in a southern rural population and discusses implications for preventive health services that must be implemented to decrease the number of successful elderly suicides.
Hart-Hester
Susan
S
Department of Family Medicine, University of Mississippi Medical Center, USA. shart-hester@familymed.umsmed.edu
D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008922:Mississippi / Q000453:epidemiology; D012424:Rural Population / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D013405:Suicide / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D000092864:Suicide Prevention