Resource Tag: UNITED STATES. CALIFORNIA

Background Suicide is a major public health problem with immediate and long-term effects on individuals, families, and communities. In 2020 and 2021, stressors wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic, stay-at-home mandates, economic turmoil, social unrest, and growing inequality likely modified risk for self-harm. The coinciding surge in firearm purchasing may have increased risk for firearm suicide. […]

The purpose of this study was to use geospatial indicators of mental health need and homelessness in Los Angeles County Service Planning Areas (SPAs) and a psychiatric sample of adults who were homeless to investigate 1) overlap between SPA level of mental health need and corresponding volume of involuntary psychiatric hospitalizations over time; 2) overlap […]

Importance  Little is known about the extent to which secondhand exposure to household firearms is associated with risk of suicide in adults who do not own guns, most of whom are women. Objective  To evaluate changes in risk of suicide among women living in gun-free households after one of their cohabitants became a handgun owner. Design, Setting, […]

The Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission (MHSOAC) is charged with developing a statewide suicide prevention plan. In my testimony today, I would like to highlight three goals that MHSOAC should consider when designing this plan to support local communities and stakeholders in preventing suicide across the state. The first goal is to provide better […]

Single-parenting students face unique challenges that may adversely affect their mental health, which have not been explored in community college settings. OBJECTIVE: The authors conducted secondary analysis of Spring 2013 data from the American College Health Association-National College Health Assessment to examine difficulties facing single-parent community college students and the association between single parenting and […]

Suicides from popular venues (known as “hotspots”) are often publicized and may result in imitation by subsequent suicides that may lead to clustering of the suicides over time. In order to examine whether the suicides from the Golden Gate Bridge showed clustering, data from the 224 suicides during 1999–2009 were analyzed using the Anderson-Darling Test […]

Suicide prevention hotlines in California respond to callers in need and reduce caller distress, but could improve their services and reach more users by expanding digital offerings such as chat services and establishing better programs to monitor and improve the quality of their services, according to new studies from the RAND Corporation. Evaluating nearly a […]

For 60 years, the directors of the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District, reflecting the live-and-let-live ethos that animates this city, never agreed to build a barrier. Now, with the numbers of suicides rising , the country has more annually than traffic fatalities , and the ages of those jumping here declining, they are […]

The Golden Gate Bridge (GGB) is a well-known Òsuicide magnetÓ and the site of approximately 30 suicides per year. Recently, a suicide barrier was approved to prevent further suicides. Cost-benefit analysis suggests that a suicide barrier on the GGB would result in a highly cost-effective reduction in suicide mortality in the San Francisco Bay Area.

This report outlines the strategic plan for the prevention of suicide in Santa Clara County, California. It opens with a review of the impact of suicide in Santa Clara County, what the Suicide Prevention Advisory Committee did, & what the Committee learned. The next part of the report summarizes local needs & is followed by […]

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152 primary care physicians were randomly recruited (53-61% of those approached) from 4 sites in northern California & Rochester, New York to participate in a study assessing the effect of a patient’s request for antidepressant medication on a physician’s prescribing behaviour. Standardized patients portraying 2 conditions & 3 antidepressant request types made 298 unannounced visits […]

See #2010-0000 for another article on this study.

Rates of suicide ideation & behaviours as well as associated risk factors were examined among youth recruited from 5 public sectors of care – child welfare, juvenile justice, special education services, alcohol & drug services, & county mental health. 1057 California youth, ages 11-18, completed a diagnostic interview & questionnaires assessing relevant suicide risk factors […]

The quality of suicide risk assessments in the psychiatric emergency setting was evaluated by reviewing physician documentation of process indicators. Medical records of 145 patients involuntarily admitted were reviewed for 19 process indicators. Documentation that a process indicator was not met by a patient was included in the data. Patients were divided into 2 groups: […]

The Golden Gate Bridge is the number one suicide site in the world. In this clinical case conference, the authors begin by presenting vignettes to capture the diversity of bridge suicide. They then examine the demographic characteristics of those who die by suicide from the bridge as well as the fatal attraction of the Golden […]

This study investigated relationships between self-reported ages of achieving minority sexual orientation development milestones, childhood maltreatment, & suicide attempt experiences in a sample of 2,001 women recruited from multiple community sources. Younger age was positively linked to self-reported recall of childhood maltreatment experiences & to a childhood suicide attempt. After adjusting for differences in maltreatment, […]

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This study investigated whether women use less lethal methods of suicide than men & determined whether place of suicide influences method of suicide. Data on suicides in Riverside County, 1998-2001, were derived from death certificates. Women were over 73% less likely to use firearms than men. There were no gender differentials in hanging but females […]

The authors uses his own experience as a starting point for exploring law enforcement suicide. The goal is to arouse attention, engage in candid discussion, & develop prevention strategies. An argument is made for the need to innoculate officers against the common interpersonal & organizational dysfunction resulting from a law enforcement career. The effort needs […]

Crisis negotiators in California who had been involved in the past 5 years in incidents in which the suspect died by suicide completed a questionnaire & provided information about: anxiety symptoms during the incident; formal support afterwards; informal support from co-workers, supervisors, administrators, & investigators; long-term effects of the incident in the form of posttrauamtic […]

This study analyzed alcohol in fatalites in Hinds County, Mississippi (a dry county) compared to Contra Costa County, California (a wet county). Data on all unnatural deaths during a 1-year period among those 18 years & older were abstracted from county coroner’s files. 222 cases in Hinds County & 304 cases in Contra Costa County […]

The resources available & current practice for the treatment of patients with suicide ideation or attempts in California emergency departments was determined through a mail & e-mail survey of the directors of all 346 emergency departments. 223 responses were received. Overall, the mean estimate of the proportion of emergency department visits by suicidal patients was […]