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NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A coroner has teamed up with a nonprofit research organization to study suicide rates in New Orleans.
The New Orleans Advocate (http://bit.ly/1MPpdoZ) reports Orleans Parish coroner Dr. Jeffrey Rouse and RAND Corp. will use the study to understand common causes of suicide and create prevention efforts. The goal of the study, Rouse said, is to "illuminate common causes and lead prevention efforts here in New Orleans."
"Given both the historical and continued under-resourcing of the Orleans Parish Coroner's Office," Rouse said, "I need outside consultants to drill down into our data to understand the sources of this trend in suicide."
Through the end of July — the most recent figures available — the Coroner's Office this year had investigated 34 suicides, a figure that already eclipsed the number New Orleans saw in all of 2013. If that rate holds steady, this year's total also will easily surpass the 46 suicides recorded in 2014, according to the Coroner's Office.
Rouse said his office has not yet outlined the demographics of the victims, so it's too soon to say which segments of the population are accounting for the spike.
"We're looking at a sustained increase over the past several years in Orleans Parish," he said. "I think there's something there."
Louisiana's suicide rate has climbed steadily over the past decade, increasing from 11.1 per 100,000 residents in 2005 to 14.2 per 100,00 residents in 2014, according to data from the state Department of Health and Hospitals.
It's not yet known how last year's total compares with other states' figures, but Louisiana's suicide rate for 2013 was slightly lower than the climbing national average, according to the American Association of Suicidology.
"It's always an alarming number because you'd like it to be zero," said Dr. Beau Clark, the East Baton Rouge Parish coroner.
At least some of the statewide increase in recent years appears to be attributable to a jump in suicides in St. Tammany Parish, a jurisdiction that recorded a 47 percent increase in cases between 2013 and 2014. As of early November, the parish had counted 34 suicides this year, compared with 47 in all of 2014, according to the St. Tammany Coroner's Office.
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Information from: The New Orleans Advocate, http://www.neworleansadvocate.com
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