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Found this story in WaPo, https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/the-suicide-rate-in-ny-state-is-the-lowest-in-the-nation-experts-want-to-figure-out-why/2020/01/31/eed271b6-21cc-11ea-a153-dce4b94e4249_story.html [washingtonpost.com] but a little searching suggested that they started with a very similar story posted a couple of months ago by the Kaiser Family Foundation, https://khn.org/news/among-u-s-states-new-yorks-suicide-rate-is-the-lowest-hows-that/ [khn.org]

Here's the question:

Like other states, ... New York has seen its rate increase. But New York has consistently reported rates well below those of the U.S. overall. Compared with the national rate of 14 suicides per 100,000 people in 2017, New York’s was just 8.1, the lowest suicide rate in the nation.

The article offers two likely explanations:

- NY gun laws, access to a gun roughly triples the "success rate" compared to OD'ing and other methods.

- Urbanization, suicide rates in urban areas are nearly half of rural areas (NY City dominates NY population).

The article ends up with a discussion of a new type of therapy/intervention from Switzerland, now being trialed in NY State, original Swiss paper here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4773217/ [nih.gov]

A good friend lost his brilliant son to suicide over 30 years ago (high school romance rejected) and your AC submitter has been interested in this topic ever since.

Original Submission