Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Suicide Deaths in Lake County

As discussed at the first meeting of the Lake County Suicide Prevention Task Force this morning:

Death by Suicide in Lake County (Inquest result data for the last 5 years):

45-63 individuals per year; approximately 3 : 1 male to female, peak 41-50 yrs old, no seasonal trend although somewhat of a trend for more suicide deaths in spring and summer, the top 3 methods are firearms, hanging and drugs. Of some note was that in about 50% of the deaths there was a positive screen for drugs (including alcohol),with the direct cause of death in about 20% being drugs (including alcohol).

Death by Suicide occurs everywhere in the county: (by police jurisdiction zip codes)
60002 = 14 60010 = 8
60015 = 8 60020 = 6
60030 = 15 60031 = 19
60035 = 12 60044 = 3
60045 = 5 60046 = 14
60047 = 6 60048 = 11
60060 = 22 60061 = 8
60064 = 7 60073 = 23
60083 = 4 60084 = 2
60085 = 26 60087 = 9
60088 = 3 60089 = 8
60096 = 3 60099 = 17

It was a good start this morning and I look forward to the work progressing.

2 comments:

maire said...

Thanks, Dr. Keller for posting this information. I find your new blog quite interesting. My work is related to much of what you post. I work at a local hospital in the ER assessing patients who have psych issues, and often encounter (as you may well guess) suicide attempts and overdoses (etoh or drugs). I plan to share these statistics with my colleagues, if you don't mind. But I had a question, the number of suicides sorted by zip code...are those numbers from the past 5 years or just 2005. I'd like clarification. Thank you again.

Dr. Richard Keller said...

I posted them to promote sharing and discussion. Demonstration that death by suicide is a big problem and does occur throughout the County, hopefully will prompt action/participation in action to begin working to prevent suicides.

The numbers are 5 year totals in each zipcode area.