KDHE report finds suicides on the rise
The 2002 Kansas Annual Summary of Vital Statistics was released this past week by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment's Center for Health and Environmental Statistics with some positive and negative points of interest.
The most common single external cause of death in 2002 was motor-vehicle deaths (547), followed by suicide (346) and falls (170). Unintentional injury and violent deaths account for nearly 50 (49.2) percent of deaths for those 1-44 years of age.
After the report was published, KDHE State Registrar and Center Director Dr. Lorne Phillips said that he's concerned about the increase in suicide deaths. That makes two of us.
There was a 16.5 percent increase in the number of suicide deaths over 2001, a depressing statistic to say the least. And many say it's depression that's driving people to suicide.
We all have a story about a friend, a relative, or an aquantance that has taken their life, and frankly, it's never easy to talk about, but it's important that we try to. More importantly, we need to communicate "with" our youth, instead of "to" our youth about issues such as suicide. Suicide is a very real epidemic sweeping across the country, and becoming more and more popular among teen-agers.
What's not becoming "as" popular in Kansas is teen pregnancy, abortion, and out of wedlock births.
The teen pregnancy rate continued to decline in 2002. The pregnancy rate for females ages 10-19 decreased 18.7 percent from 34.8 pregnancies per 1,000 in 1992 to 28.3 in 2002.
Teen pregnancy rates for females ages 10-17 decreased 26.6 percent during this same time frame. Teen pregnancies are defined as the sum of live births, fetal deaths, and abortions.
The abortion ratio for Kansas residents in 2002 was 160.1 per 1,000 live births, a decrease of 2.7 percent from the 164.6 ratio in 1992.
The out of wedlock birth ratio has continued an upward trend over the years in both Kansas and the U.S.
Out-of-wedlock births comprised 30.8 percent of all live births that occurred to Kansas residents in 2002, a 26.7 percent increase from 24.3 percent of live births in 1992.
The out-of-wedlock birth ratio in 2002 was 8.9 percent lower than the U.S. proportion (33.8 percent) of births to unmarried women.
What does all this mean? In life there are always positive and negative stories. While the KDHE report does illustrate some negative statistics concerning the state of Kansas, I think it's important to see the numerous advances we are making to curb the state's negative problems.
Eric Clark
