Joined
·
4,531 Posts
Gun deaths have outpaced motor vehicle fatalities in Colorado since 2009, but data from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment indicate the state has passed yet another milestone in death statistics.
For the first time in 2012, suicides by firearm alone surpassed motor vehicle fatalities, with 457 Coloradans dying in fatal car crashes and 532 taking their own lives using guns.
Gun suicides experienced their biggest increase in the past 12 years between 2011 and 2012, jumping up nearly 20 percent. Experts say many of these deaths are preventable, but that prevention requires framing suicide as a public health issue, not an insular problem.
"In motor vehicle accidents, the type of intervention is clear. I think in suicide it is less clear in regards to that policy question," said Shannon Breitzman, director of the Injury, Suicide and Violence Prevention Branch of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.
Colorado ranks 32nd in the nation for traffic fatalities per miles traveled, according to 2009 numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau. Yet Colorado has the eighth-highest suicide rate per capita, according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
All states with higher rates of suicide also are located in the American West.
Read more: http://www.dailycamera.com/boulder-...cides-now-outpace-traffic-fatalities-colorado
For the first time in 2012, suicides by firearm alone surpassed motor vehicle fatalities, with 457 Coloradans dying in fatal car crashes and 532 taking their own lives using guns.
Gun suicides experienced their biggest increase in the past 12 years between 2011 and 2012, jumping up nearly 20 percent. Experts say many of these deaths are preventable, but that prevention requires framing suicide as a public health issue, not an insular problem.
"In motor vehicle accidents, the type of intervention is clear. I think in suicide it is less clear in regards to that policy question," said Shannon Breitzman, director of the Injury, Suicide and Violence Prevention Branch of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.
Colorado ranks 32nd in the nation for traffic fatalities per miles traveled, according to 2009 numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau. Yet Colorado has the eighth-highest suicide rate per capita, according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
All states with higher rates of suicide also are located in the American West.
Read more: http://www.dailycamera.com/boulder-...cides-now-outpace-traffic-fatalities-colorado
