Western States Have Highest Suicide Rate Idaho, Montana Rank Among Top 10 In Nation

Western states, led by Nevada, have the highest suicide rate in the nation, according to a study released Thursday.

From 1990 to 1994, Nevada’s suicide rate was 22.2 per 100,000 residents, the Centers for Disease Control said. That was almost twice the national average of 11.8.

What’s alarming is the Nevada rate doesn’t include tourists who may commit suicide while in the state.

With a 14.7 rate, Western states led other regions when the number of deaths were adjusted to conform with age, sex and ethnicity of the U.S. population.

The study has a margin of error of plus or minus 0.1 percent. The information came from death certificates.

Dr. Alex Crosby, a medical epidemiologist in the CDC’s division of violence prevention in Atlanta, said the suicide rate tends to be higher for males, the elderly and Native Americans. But even after the suicide rate was adjusted for those factors, Western states still had a high suicide rate.

Crosby said he and the study’s other researcher believe other factors such as income, occupation, economic class, and social isolation may have contributed to the high rate.

“Is it that the West has more folks who are socially isolated? We don’t know that. There’s some more work to be done to try to identify what’s going on in the West,” he said.

Crosby noted that Arizona, Washington, Colorado, Oregon and Alaska have extensive suicide prevention programs.

The study also found that the leading method of suicide in the United States was firearms, followed by strangulation and overdose.

The Northeast had the lowest suicide rate at 8.6, followed by the Midwest at 10.9 and the South at 13.1.

By state, Wyoming followed Nevada with 19.8, then Montana at 18.8, New Mexico at 18.5, Arizona at 18, Idaho at 16.8, Colorado at 16.3, Utah at 15.7, and Oregon at 14.8. Washington, D.C., had the lowest rate at 6.7.

The adjusted rate for New Hampshire, Louisiana and Oklahoma wasn’t calculated due to incomplete reporting, the study said.

Crosby said he couldn’t explain why Nevada’s suicide rate was the highest even when demographics were adjusted.

“There’s something else happening there,” he said.

Arnie Wexler, who with his wife conducts compulsive gambling seminars across the country, believes compulsive gambling leads many Nevadans to suicide.

“Absolutely. I know about a dozen people alone who have committed suicide,” Wexler, a recovering gambler, said from his Bradley Beach, N.J., home Thursday.

If gaming is the culprit, New Jersey’s suicide rate of 8.8 doesn’t tell the same story.

Wexler, who used to head the Council on Compulsive Gambling of New Jersey, said many suicides go unreported.

“Believe me, they just don’t get reported. It doesn’t get identified as compulsive gambling.”

But Luana Ritch, spokeswoman for the Nevada State Health Division in Carson City, said compulsive gambling likely is not the reason for the high rate.

Many people move to Nevada and leave extended family, churches and other support groups behind, Ms. Ritch said, adding that the social isolation may increase suicides.

Ritch said she couldn’t comment directly on the CDC study until she has seen it, but she did say a recent state Health Division study showed Nevada had a 1995 suicide rate of 23.5 deaths per 100,000 people.