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Comment by mrweasel | Hacker News Reader

> The decline is mostly the product of an increase in drug overdose and suicides

The US is pretty much also the only country where suicides are increasing.

Are there other countries where the news media is as hell-bent on stoking the fires of craziness and painting the world as a horrible, horrible place full only of strife and despair?

India

Has a declining suicide rate. The rate is higher than that of the US, but improving, while the rate in the US is getting worse.

The question was about the media, not the suicide rate.

The big change relatively recently is that suicides in rural areas are now far higher than urban. Have you been to a rural area in the US recently? Most have been completely hollowed out - there is no hope in a lot of these places. The despair there is real.

Can you be more specific than just 'rural'? I've been through middle Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas and those areas seem mostly fine to me. Is it because rural farming is still ok but other rural like appalachia or rural Montana isn't doing well? Specifically where is hollowed out?

I think OP was probably referring to the 'dead Main Streets' and 'neighborhood near the plant that closed is totally struggling' phenomenon. I've been around the same areas and see seriously struggling places. When I was growing up, the Main Street was a little better but still bad, but the new strip mall stores/outlets/Walmart out by the highway were doing great. Now, the stores around the Walmart aren't even alive.

I've seen what they described in Texas, Virginia, Utah, etc. I suspect that it is like this throughout much of the southern United States. People are born in places that cannot provide them an adequate living, and then they are too poor to leave. It's a pretty hopeless situation to become trapped in.

Basically a lot of the "rust belt" areas like Ohio, Kentucky, large swaths of Pennsylvania, parts of Virginia, etc., and also rural areas of southern states that were always below average or poor are now downright destitute.

I took a road trip through the Northern states, WI, MN, SD, WY, it was truly depressing. Some of these towns were just shells, no interesting businesses, tiny run down houses, shuttered buildings, the only buildings that were open were the post office and a couple diners or gas stations. I don't consider that mostly fine, it was sad.

I suspect it's because we hate poor people and think any form of welfare is "Russian Communist Socialism"

When it comes to spending on social welfare, the U.S. is at the low end of the spectrum relative to Western Europe. For example, only 18.8 percent of the U.S. GDP is spent on social welfare, while most of the OECD nations spend at least 25 percent of their GDP. Our rates of suicide are increasing while their rates fall.

of course it's way more complicated and nuanced than my one example.

edit - no? is this wrong?

not sure exactly why you're being downvoted, but you probably should justify why "percent of GDP spent on social welfare" is the relevant comparison here. the US is in the top quartile of OECD countries for GDP per capita, and has over twice the GDP per capita of the lowest quartile countries. if they spent the same percentage of GDP as the other countries, they would be spending vastly more per citizen.

Suicide rates in several other developed nations are either higher or compable to the US. Things must be really, really bad in Belgium, Finland and Iceland eh (you know, just three of the nicest countries on Earth). How could Sweden, France and Australia be anywhere near the US rate?

Suicide rates in order per 100k: South Korea 20.2, Belgium 15.7, Japan 14.3, Finland 13.8, US 13.3, Iceland 13.3, France 12.1, Sweden 11.7, Australia 11.7, New Zealand 11.6, Switzerland 11.3, Ireland 10.9, Canada 10.4, Norway 10.1

Others in Europe: Russia 26, Lithuania 25.7, Belarus 21.4, Ukraine 18.5, Latvia 17.2, Estonia 14.4, Hungary 13.6, Moldova 13.4, Poland 13.4, Slovenia 13.3, Austria 11.4

Why are Europeans killing themselves at such high rates?

Belgium has decriminalized euthanasia, maybe that plays a role...

Should euthanasia be included in suicide rates though?

Honest question, I really dont know.

Having a terminal illness at age 90 and being clinically depressed at age 18 are very different things (obviously).

I think it is rate of change which has people concerned. The rate of suicide in the US is up 25% in the last 15 years.

> The US is pretty much also the only country where suicides are increasing

So the initial assertion was not compelling.

> it is rate of change which has people concerned.

Do you have any source about people being concerned (what people?) for the new goalpost?

Note that the majority of the mentioned countries are relatively small. The rates in the largest ones - that is Germany, France, UK, Italy and Spain - covering more than half of the European population - are much lower than in the US.

The elephant(s) in the room is(are) of course Russia and within the EU - Poland(population: 38mln) - but in these cases the explanation as to why it happens is pretty obvious.

Weirdly in Belgium this appears to be specific to the Walloon west of the country.

All the other European ones you mention other than Finland (where the suicide rate is believed to be linked to being dark for half the year) are Eastern european former communist states. There's still a lag in healthcare modernisation there.

One possible explanation is that Europeans are not killing themselves at significantly higher rates but that coroners in the US are less likely to classify a death as a suicide relative to coroners in Europe. There are a lot of cultural taboos in place. Again, however, this is just supposition.

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