Paper on Suicide/Suicide Prevention

Essay by crystalightUniversity, Bachelor's September 2004

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The topic that I have chosen for this paper is Suicide Prevention in your Area. Suicide is a serious problem that has effected the entire country. Recent studies have shown that suicide is the eleventh leading cause of death in the United States. It is my belief that if more and more people are educated about suicide, the warning signs, whose most at risk, and how to help prevent suicide; perhaps, the suicide mortality rate will decrease in the United States.

The need for suicide prevention should be quite obvious, because suicide is like a contagious disease in the United States. Suicide effects people of all different age groups, different ethnic and cultural groups. To the best of my knowledge it is difficult getting accurate data on the number of suicidal attempts and deaths, because many suicide attempts are not reported each year; also, perhaps the number of deaths by suicide are not reported as actual suicides but as accidental deaths.

According to the National Center for Health Statistics (1998), more Americans take their own lives each year then are murdered by someone else and that, over the last five years, more people have died by suicide then AIDS. When I came across this statistic I for one was shocked that such a thing could be true, but it lead me to realize that the prevention of suicide in this country is even more important and should not be taken lightly.

Suicide is the eleventh leading cause of death, and is responsible for more then 30,000 deaths in the United States each year. The rates of deaths by suicide vary somewhat for different age and ethnic groups. The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (1998) showed that suicide is the second leading cause of death among college students, and the third...