BRATTLEBORO — Over the past 10 years, Vermont's suicide death rates have averaged 30 percent higher than the rates for the United States as a whole.
Suicide is the second-leading cause of death of all Vermonters age 14-35, the third-leading cause for those ages 35-44, and among the top 10 causes for all Vermonters.
It turns out that the idea “that if someone wants to kill themselves, they will find a way” is a myth. Studies that follow people who made serious suicide attempts find that more than 90 percent of them do not go on to die by suicide when they are identified as suicidal and get effective treatment and follow up services.
The Vermont Department of Mental Health has made a small new request of $72,000 for the Vermont Suicide Prevention Center, a request that was removed from the House budget.
At present, the state allocates $100,000 for suicide prevention, a woefully small commitment to a pressing public-health problem for which there are effective means of prevention if they can be adopted into best practice across multiple sectors: education, health care, and community providers.
Suicide is a complex problem that requires multiple solutions, and many people play an important role. The first place to start is to prioritize this very small request in the version of the Senate budget to be approved this week so we can build on the work we have done in Vermont to address this problem.