Suicide Causes and Prevention Essay

In 1980 nearly 27,000 people took their own lives, making suicide the 10th most common cause of death. 57 percent of the cases of suicide in the United States involved firearms. In 2015 Suicide had been marked the second leading cause of death from ages 10-24. Suicide has been a major health problem in the United States since 1980. The suicides in The United States recently increased because of California and New York. “Suicide is the second leading cause of death for college-age youth and ages 12-18”

Suicide was seen as a just way to die if one was faced with unendurable suffering - be it physical or emotional”. Throughout time, suicide has been viewed and dealt with in countless ways. Recently in America, the problem has grown increasingly. In the past decade, suicide rates have been on the incline; especially among men. According to the New York Times (2013), “From 1999 to 2010, the suicide rate among Americans ages 35 to 64 rose by nearly 30 percent… The suicide rate for middle-aged men was 27.3 deaths per 100,000, while for women it was 8.1 deaths per 100,000”. A 30 percent increase with an average of 19 more male suicides than female suicides is certainly an issue for both genders, and an epidemic for men. The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (n.d.), found that in 2010, 38,364 suicides were reported, with 78.9% being men. The economic recession, unemployment, and various other factors are speculated to be responsible for this incline in male suicide. As of 2010, an estimated 30,308 men ended their own lives, and it seems as if there is a great risk of that number increasing each year.

Suicide rate is a grow problem in the United States according to the American foundation for suicide prevention more than 41,149 suicides were reported in 2013. The highest rate of suicides is committed by adults between age 45-64 and this is especially true amongst the elderly. Older adults are inflected with a terminal disease, loneness and depression and because of this they are committing suicide at a higher rate. Suicide amongst the men is steadily higher than women, in 2013, 77.9% were male and 22.1% were female. Men success rate for suicide is much higher, because their attempt is more lethal, for example, men are more than likely to shot themselves, whereas women are more likely to use poisons to end their life. Suicide Rate committed race/ethnicity was higher among Whites 14.2%, American Indians and Alaska Natives 11.7%, Asians and Pacific Islanders 5.8%, Blacks 5.4% and Hispanics 5.7%. According to the mean method used to commit suicide is a firearm, then suffocation and poisoning. The main cause of suicide is due to mental health condition and depression is at the foremost leading factor.

However, I want to understand suicide more in a sociological perspective. I’ve only viewed suicide as an individual problem and never accounted other macro-level elements. Even, if we can pinpoint a source of the cause, we could consider outside factors that can threaten persons or groups of people’s mental well-being. Merriam-Webster defined suicide, “the act or an instance of taking one’s own life voluntarily and intentionally especially by a person of years of discretion and of sound mind.” (Merriam, 2016)

Suicide affects all people of all races and ages. It can be caused by many factors that challenge us in everyday life such as: extreme fear, depression, abuse, bullying, mental disorders, family issues, school, stress, sometimes for attention (depending on the person and the situation) and can come on at random times for no reason. It’s a cause and effect type of death. The meaning of suicide is the act or intention of taking one’s life. This paper will be going into the depths of suicide, the cause and effect views, how other people view it, and the way it effects family and community alike.

Suicide takes the lives of more than 40,000 people in the United States every year-that’s more than twice the number of homicides. Every 12.3 minutes there is a confirmed death by suicide in this country. It’s the 10th leading cause of death across the lifespan and the 2nd leading cause of death for those 15-24 years old. Men die by suicide at almost 3.5 times the rate of women and women attempt suicide at

Taking one’s life is more common in our society than one might think. Among the adult segment, suicide is the tenth leading cause. When suicide is

Suicide is a serious public health problem that occurs in all regions of the world. Epidemiological estimates hold that more than 800,000 suicide deaths occur worldwide annually and suicide was the second leading cause of death for individuals between the age of 15 and 29 years of age (WHO, 2014). In the United States, 41,149 suicides occurred and it was the 10th leading cause of death in 2013 (CDC, 2015). The age-adjusted death rates declined for eight other leading causes of death, including heart disease, cancer, chronic lower respiratory diseases, stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, influenza and pneumonia, as well as kidney disease from 2011 to 2012 in the United States. However, the rate of suicide rose two percentage points to

According to Suicide Statistics — AFSP (2015), approximately 44.193 people die because of committing suicide every year. Suicide is one of the common leading causes of death in the United States. The age-adjusted suicide rate is 13.26 people per 100,000 population in a year. Men have a suicide rate 3.5 times higher than women. There are 121 people who commit suicide on average per a day. Suicide rate is highest in the middle age, especially white male. In 2015, the highest suicide rate was among adults between the ages of 45 and 64 years. The second highest suicide rate occurred at the age of 85 and older. Suicide rates had have been consistently lower for young people than for

There are many causes, contributing factors, and risk factors that lead people to commit suicide. Many people have mental disorders, relationship problems, or mental disabilities that lead them to commit suicide. Societal pressure and change are also factors. People may commit suicide for a variety of reasons and some suicides have to do with genetics as well.

Since scientific evidence showed that suicide rates skyrocket progressively across all age: children and adolescent (McClure, 1994), Middle-age (Manton et al., 1987) and the elderly (Draper, 1996), studying suicide have become an important issue in sociology. Suicide is a complex issue which may combine several factors such as development factors, social factors, and culture factors (Goldsmith, 2002). However, Durkheim (1897) provided a classical model including four types of suicide: altruistic suicide, fatalistic suicide, egoistic suicide and anomic suicide based on simplistic way the strength of social network. Indeed, this method was scientific proven by other scholars (Bearman, 1991; Stack, 1994). Even though he made a big progress on typology of suicide, there are some limitations such as attempted suicide from women (Kushner and Sterk, 2005) and the homeless suicide (Fitzpatrick et.al., 2007) and religious affiliation (Stack, 2013) have been raised.

Depression carries a high risk of suicide. Over 90% of people who die by suicide have clinical depression or another diagnosable mental disorder. Many times, people who die by suicide have an alcohol or substance abuse problem. Often they have that problem in combination with other mental disorders.

“I want to understand suicide more in a sociological perspective. I’ve only looked at suicide as more of an individual problem and never accounted that there’s something bigger. The social factor is a variable that we have to consider when we are looking at preventing suicide. Even, if we can pinpoint a source of the cause, we could consider outside factors that can threaten individuals or groups of people’s mental well-being.” (Kiser, 2016)

Suicide occurs when an individual voluntarily and intentionally takes his/her life. Everyone is said to have a “suicide potential” which translates to the differing degrees of the individuals’ inclination to end their lives. (Durkheim, Spaulding and Simpson 1951) This “suicide potential” is very much affected by the collective social actors which have a reality sui generis – unique; of its own kind, and not a mere subset of biological or psychological factors. (Durkheim et al. 1951) Moreover, these collective social actors are exclusively found in each differing society which underscores the stark contrast of suicide rates between countries and even

There are an infinite number of factors that can lead one to commit suicide, however, it is not truly possible to understand what goes through one’s mind as they spend their final moments alive. Each individual struggles with and handles complications in a different manner, as each individual is faced with diverse problems. Therefore, a problematic issue that can lead one individual to commit suicide could quite possible have no effect of any kind on another individual. Suicide is often a carefully planned out and decisive action as it is almost always the result of several problematic issues that accumulate over time. Albeit, a root cause for suicide cannot be pinpointed, there are many prevalent contributing factors that augment to rising suicide rates. Suicide continues to be a global problem with a universal question of why.