Increased access to potentially lethal prescription opioids has made it easier for women, specifically, to end their own lives; and a shrinking federal safety net has contributed to rising suicide rates among all adults during tough economic times, the study suggests.

I’m leaning towards the latter. Shitty economic conditions leading people to overdose.

In Sweden during a massive economic crash from 1990 to 1994, suicide deaths did not increase, in part because the government invested in social safety net programs to minimize the health effects of financial strain, Simon said. While rates spiked at the onset of the Great Depression, they plummeted after the passage of the New Deal in 1933, which put Americans back to work via publicly funded projects.

No way

So… despair from shitty economic conditions with no help in sight, and increased access to methods. Neither of those are surprising.

“Suicide hotline crisis numbers and efforts to help people at the individual level are all amazing and necessary, but our work shows that higher-level, institutional interventions are also critical in addressing this crisis,” said Simon. “Giving a person a job or proper health care can also be a suicide-prevention tool.”

What with tens of thousands of tech workers being laid off as tech companies pivot to artificial intelligence, I feel like the idea jobs as suicide-prevention is more salient than ever.

I feel like we fund these studies just to feed the people doing them.