as not many people talk about it yet it is in the top 20 leading causes of death for Americans. Many people look down on suicide especially with some religious beliefs and choose to ignore it rather than to face it. Suicide is when one person end his or her life and there are many factors to it including from thinking about it to planning it. Suicide is an injury that can be prevented with the right steps.
I believe preventing suicide is important, as not only is the person affected, but the people around are affected even more. Families are devastated at losses and the economy is affected at an average of 33 billion dollars loss from self harm. Preventing suicide is a bit hard because people do not speak up on it and can be unexpected many times. Yet there are risk factors that contribute to suicide that can be seen and prevented. Such are depression, easy access to tools that help people commit suicide, and alcohol and substance abuse. Suicide can range from adolescents to seniors so it affects a wide range of ages. Ways to prevent suicide can be intense therapy, access to better medical care, and support from family and friends. Society can also greatly affect the person's will commit suicide. Not only is suicide prevalent in America, but it also occurs very frequently in other countries as well. There is an estimation that every forty seconds, someone dies of suicide in the world.
Suicide prevention is important to me because a close family friend recently committed suicide. The person was like a brother to my dad and had a loving family that included a daughter around my age. He had been depressed for awhile because of the bad economy but it was a shock to hear the news. From this, I personally experienced how much a suicide can affect the people around the person. Sometimes it's hard to accept suicide but people need to be more educated about it in order to create an environment where people do not seek suicide as the answer. This is why I would like to write about suicide prevention as my topic for the final paper.
April, I'm sorry for your loss, I hope your family is coping well. Suicide can be a devastating blow to all involved.
ReplyDeleteSuicide is a very relevant public health problem topic to work on, and you defined several key elements of the problem already(population affected, key determinants, magnitude of the problem and others).
You can now start thinking of ways to hone your problem definition. Basically, make it more specific in terms of timeframe, burden of problem, and population affected. Refer to the handout on "Final Paper Guidelines" you received at the beginning of the term.
You can ask me any questions tomorrow if you're stuck. See you soon.