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posted by on Thursday March 30 2017, @02:03PM   Printer-friendly

Rural America is facing an existential crisis. As cities continue to grow and prosper, small towns are shrinking. That fundamental divide played itself out in the recent presidential election.

[...] The trend is clear: Rural America is literally fading away. It shouldn't come as a surprise, therefore, that the opioid overdose epidemic has hit rural states, like Kentucky and West Virginia, especially hard. And the latest research from the CDC also shouldn't come as a surprise: Suicides in rural America (labeled as non-core) have increased over 40% in 16 years.

From 1999 to 2015, suicide rates increased everywhere in America. On average, across the U.S., suicides increased from 12.2 per 100,000 to 15.7 per 100,0001, an increase of just under 30%. However, in rural America, the suicide rate surged over 40%2, from just over 15 per 100,000 to roughly 22 per 100,000. Similarly, the suicide rate in micropolitan areas (defined as having a population between 10,000-49,999) went from 14 per 100,000 to 19 per 100,000, an increase of around 35%.

On the flip side, major cities saw much smaller increases in suicide rates, on the order of 10%. The graph depicts a clear pattern: Suicide rates are highest in the most rural parts of the country, and they slowly decrease as urbanization increases. As of 2015, the suicide rate in rural areas (22 per 100,000) is about 40% higher than in the nation as a whole (15.7 per 100,000) and 83% higher than in large cities (12 per 100,000).

-- submitted from IRC


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  • (Score: 3, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday March 30 2017, @04:06PM (8 children)

    by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Thursday March 30 2017, @04:06PM (#486548) Homepage Journal

    Oh, I'm dying from being squashed by a skydiving sumo wrestler whose parachute failed while I'm in the middle of a foursome with identical triplet cheerleaders half my age. Or at least that's what I want in my obituary.

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @04:47PM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @04:47PM (#486584)

    Lock 'im up boys! Or are you old enough to just be a regular pervert?

    • (Score: 1, Offtopic) by Runaway1956 on Thursday March 30 2017, @05:14PM (2 children)

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Thursday March 30 2017, @05:14PM (#486604) Journal

      Boy babies learn on day one that child bearing age women are the SourceOfAllThingsGood®. Girl babies learn pretty much the same thing, but the difference is, girls learn later in life that men are the SourceOfAllThingsExpensive®, and boy babies never learn that. So we go through life knowing what we learned on day one - child bearing age women are the SourceOfAllThingsGood®.

      Those few men who don't understand that are homos, or just plain fucking WEIRD!

      Yes, us older guys still like nubile young things. We will until the day we die. At the ripe old age of 120, there might be a dozen old women, and another dozen males working to save our lives for yet another day, or week, or month, and we don't take notice. Let that nubile young female nurse take our pulse, and the pulse will quicken, if only momentarily.

      That's the way it is, folks. If you think that "creepy", there is a strong chance that you are one of the lizard people.

      • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @06:09PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @06:09PM (#486655)

        It was a joke jeeezzus

        I will agree that we're trying a bit hard to mask the underlying animal nature of humanity and it would be better to talk open about these issues. Trying to hide them under Victorian era morality just causes psychological problems that probably increase the number of sexual predators.

        For those of you that have a hard time maybe the good old equation can help you: Half your age plus 7.

        A good rule of thumb if you care about the "creep" factor. Also, "age of consent" if you're worried about the jail factor :P No amount of "but its biology!" is gonna get you out of that judgment.

        If the carrion eater is 34 or younger then he should be thrown in fantasy prison.

    • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday March 30 2017, @05:55PM (1 child)

      by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Thursday March 30 2017, @05:55PM (#486646) Homepage Journal

      Old enough to be a regular pervert, not old enough to be a proper dirty old man.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @06:49PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @06:49PM (#486679)
        That band, I think, is called Sockcummy Valley.
  • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday March 30 2017, @05:24PM (1 child)

    by bob_super (1357) on Thursday March 30 2017, @05:24PM (#486612)

    You could just have a coronary at the end of the exercise, instead of sumo-ruining the triplets for the rest of us.