Month Puts Suicide Rate in Spotlight

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Category: News

Created on Friday, 27 September 2024 14:48

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By SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff Writer
    As National Suicide Prevention Month draws to a close, health professionals remind Sitkans about tools and resources available throughout the year to help those who are struggling with depression.
    That includes the friends and family of those who are struggling.
    “Suicide is preventable, that’s one thing to remember,” said Martha Pearson, southern regional director for behavioral health at the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium.

Yeidikook’áa Dionne Brady-Howard introduces a dance Saturday at the Sheet’ka Kwaan Naa Kahidi for the SEARHC Recovery Month Potlatch. The event Saturday was supported by SEARHC, Sitka Tribe of Alaska and Mt. Edgecumbe High School’s dance groups. Health professionals, during Suicide Prevention Month in September, cite community engagement and cultural connection as lifestyle factors that reduce the risk of depression. (Photo provided by SEARHC)

    “Have the conversation, talk about it – that’s really a key step in helping communities like Sitka address the issue,” she said. “One thing SEARHC and other organizations in town want to emphasize is hope. When a person is in that space where they’re considering suicide, they’ve lost hope for whatever reason, and so efforts that SEARHC makes to reconnect with those individuals, is to ask questions.”
    Pearson said it’s not comfortable for most to ask direct questions about suicide, but there are other ways for families and friends to broach the subject.
“The curriculum we use is QPR: question, persuade, refer,” she said. “What QPR does is help people feel comfortable saying to someone in their family or friend group, ‘are you OK? Are you thinking about committing suicide?’ Those are very blunt questions if it’s not something you’re used to talking about. ... Asking the question will give them the relief of being able to say, ‘I am, and I need help, I need some support and I’m really scared.’”
    Most patients are regularly asked that question when seeing their primary care doctors at SEARHC. “To be asked that question, is a way of saying, ‘I think you’re important to ask this question, and if you do need help we’re here to support you and get you the help you need,’” Pearson said.
    Among services SEARHC offers in mental health and suicide prevention are counseling, crisis intervention, psychiatry, and educational programs. Pearson said the office fields about 300 calls a week in Sitka, and sees several hundred patients per week.
    The Centers for Disease Control said that compared with the general population, American Indian and Alaska Native people are disproportionately represented in suicide statistics, as rates among this group “consistently surpass those among all other racial and ethnic groups.”
    And Alaska ranks high in the same statistic. The CDC states that as of 2020 the average suicide rate in Alaska was 23.9 per 100,000 population, and the state Suicide Prevention Council puts the rate of suicide at 23.4 per 100,000, roughly twice as high as the U.S. rate of 12.7 per 100,000.
    “So that is concerning,” Pearson said. A number of factors arise when people discuss the issue, such as darkness, isolation and “hard” weather in parts of the state.
    “Those could be true,” Pearson said. “We know many in our community are struggling with trauma, from historical trauma, whether their cultural group was discriminated against over generations. Other things that affect suicide rates are substance abuse – high rates of substance abuse go hand in hand with higher rates of suicide so we know we have areas we want to work on.”
    There’s also new research showing people with untreated traumatic brain injury (TBI) are at higher risk for suicide.
    “As public health research gets more and more sophisticated we’re finding ways to really identify who might be at risk for suicide and how we can help individuals,” Pearson said. “The idea of prevention is not to focus just on the bad things that are happening.”
    She listed the resources for Sitkans, in addition to the family physician, include a 24/7 helpline (877-294-0074); psychiatric care; individual and family care; residential youth services; case management; and addiction services. The state suicide prevention helpline, also available 24 hours a day, is 988.
     “You don’t have to be suicidal to use the number, you could just be having a really terrible day and need someone to talk to, you might have been affected by a suicide, you could be upset because of what you’re seeing in the community,” Pearson said.
    SEARHC has some 35 workers in Sitka focused on mental health care, and work with partners in the schools and nonprofit community. Friends, family and community also play a role in helping prevent suicide.
    “The antidote to depression is community,” said Pearson,” the connection with others who you care about, connecting with your culture, connecting with other people who are going to notice when you’re feeling down and say, ‘How are you, really?’ and ‘how can we help you to feel better?’ That is a really strong component for all of us, whether you’re seeing treatment or not.”
    Pearson just marked her 22nd year at SEARHC in multiple roles, mostly focused on public health and behavioral health initiatives. In her work, she’s seen the way different health care, counseling and community programs overlap with each other, and finds that getting to a “healthy” place is not a one-size-fits-all solution.
    “With mental health, it’s not like flipping a switch,” she said. “You can’t say ‘I hereby declare you healthy and it’ll never change.’ All of us through our lives will have ups and down, and we’ll all have challenges that overwhelm us as times, and that’s OK. At SEARHC we want to be that stable, steady, ‘we’re here for you when you need us’ provider.”
    She added that Sitka has many providers of mental health services. “The best one is the one that works for you,” she said.
    Besides the national suicide prevention line at 988, and SEARHC’s emergency line at 877-294-0074, those unsure of which services they need or office to call may use the general behavioral health services line in Sitka at 907-966-8611.