As suicide rates race upward, rural residents struggle with a lack of services, information and answers
Information compiled from Marnie
Werner, VP Research, Center for Rural Policy & Development & Tracie
Rutherford Self, Ph.D., Minnesota State University Mankato
Mortality rates in the United States and in Minnesota were on a steady decline until about 2009, when the rate reversed. The cause, researchers found, was the growing number of “deaths of despair”. The terms “diseases of despair” and “deaths of despair” were coined in 2015 and are characterized by the increasing number of deaths from suicide and excessive drug and alcohol use. The increased rate in deaths of despair was first noticed in middle-age white (non-Hispanic) men, but since then, the rate has been increasing for other racial and ethnic groups as well.
Suicide rates also tend to be higher in rural areas, including in Minnesota. Suicide rates from 2018 to 2021 were highest in northeast and northwest Minnesota and lowest in the seven-county Twin Cities area. If we look at suicide rates by population density, suicide rates in our most rural counties are spiking higher and trending up faster than the more densely populated county groups....