By Michael Bielawski
Recent news about two Vermont suicides by hanging highlight the ongoing challenges of depression in the wintery state which ranks third nationally for rates of depression.
One suicide was determined by the Williston Police Department after they got a call from a resident of South Brownell Road in mid-November about a grisly find that police later determined was a skull.
Canine dogs were used to locate more skeletal remains located about 200 feet from where the skull was found. The report concludes, “The remains were transported to the ME’s Office for positive identification and a possible cause of the death. At this point in time, the death does not appear to be suspicious.” On November 19, Chief Medical Examiner, Dr. Elizabeth Bundock identified the body as Kevin Leland, 56, of Panton, VT. It states that the cause of death was “suicide by hanging.”
Also, the Vermont Chief Medical Examiner’s Office recently informed state police that the manner of death of Michele Demar, 33, of Northfield was suicide. On Aug. 3, 2023, she was found hanging, outdoors, in the Town of Washington. Her body was found near the intersection of Vermont Route 110 and Poor Farm Road.
Suicide attempts are on the rise
According to the Department of Health, suicide-related emergency department visits are up in 2023.
“As of the end of October, the rate of suicide-related ED visits is statistically higher than the previous 3-year average,” their report states.
Certain areas of the state are seeing it worse than others.
“So far this year, Rutland and Windham County residents have experienced statistically higher rates of suicide-related ED visits than the rest of the state,” it states. “Windham County residents are also experiencing a statistically higher rate of suicide deaths.”
The rate of suicide-related ED visits per 10,000 visits is a bit higher than usual this year. So far for 2023, it’s 252 visits, for 2022 it was 235. The highest age group is young people 15 to 24, per 10,000 visits, more than 575 of them are suicide-related in 2023, up from 536 in 2022.
As people get older, their tendency towards suicide-related visits goes down. For seniors aged 65 or older about 58.5 per 10,000 ED visits are suicide-related, that number was 51 for 2022.
Suicide attempts are nearly equal across males/females, and there is a slightly higher rate for BIPOC populations. For white people in 2023, nearly 247 ED visits per 10,000 are suicide related compared with 289 for BIPOC populations.
All of the data can be seen here on the Health Department’s webpage.
Suicide deaths are down
Despite there being an uptick in suicide attempts, the number of deaths from suicide is down slightly. Overall per 100,000 residents, there were 13.7 suicides in 2022 versus 12.9 in 2023.
Deaths from suicides do not vary much across adult age groups, in contrast with ED suicide-related visits seem to be much higher for young people. Young people ages 15-to-24 have lower rates of death per 100,000 from suicide, that number being 12.5 for 2023. For senior citizens, that number is 17.3.
Also in 2023, those 25-to-44 years old saw 18.7 suicides per 100,000 people. More data can be seen on charts and graphs on this page.
Depression rate 3rd highest nationally for Vermont
Vermont ranked poorly in a national ranking for depression, the Green Mountain state has the third highest rate in the nation.
“West Virginia (29%) is the most depressed state, followed by Kentucky (27.6%) and Vermont (26.6%), based on age-adjusted prevalence estimates from those survey responses in 2021,” reported USNews.com based on a study by the Centers for Disease Control, The same report indicates that the overall nation ranks poorly for depression.
“America overall is among the most depressed countries in the world, and also among the most addicted and the most anxious,” the report states. “According to the Global Burden of Disease study, the U.S. ranked first for substance abuse disorders, 15th for anxiety disorders and 29th for depressive disorders as of 2019.”
The author is a reporter for the Vermont Daily Chronicle and the Burlington Daily News