Back to Annual Meeting

Back to Annual Meeting

APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Nikolay Lipskiy, PhD, Etiology and Surveillance Branch, CDC, NCIPC, Division of Violence Prevention, 2939 Flowers Road South, Koger Center, Vanderbilt Building, MS K-60, Atlanta, GA 30341, 770-488-1306, dgz1@cdc.com and Alexander Crosby, MD, MPH, NCIPC, DVP, CDC, 2939 Flowers Road South, Mailstop K-60, Koger Center, Vanderbilt Building, Atlanta, GA 30341.

Purpose: The purpose of this presentation is to describe the characteristics of suicides that occurred in 13 U.S. States (AK, CO, GA, MD, MA, NC, NJ, OK, OR, RI, SC, VA, and WI) in 2004. These states represent 23.4% of the national population. Methods: We assessed data from the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS), a population-based, active surveillance system that collects and aggregates information from death certificates, coroner and medical examiner records, police documents, and crime lab data. We analyzed data from the 5,950 suicides with known circumstances in 2004 and describe the profile for the typical suicide incident. Results: This report describes the epidemiology of suicides, including socio-demographic characteristics of victims, mechanisms of deaths, and circumstances that contributed to deaths. The results highlight the existence of racial, ethnic, age- and gender- related differences in the risk of suicide. This report also summarizes socio-economic patterns, behavioral, and health-related factors that are associated with these deaths. Conclusions: Results of the study demonstrate the importance of the NVDRS dataset in adding descriptors of suicide that enhance the understanding of suicide and development of population-based prevention programs.

Learning Objectives:

• Learning Objective. At the end of this session the participants should be able to summarize characteristics of suicide deaths in 13 U.S. states.

Keywords: Suicide, Death

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation