The Cause Of Suicide In The United States

Suicide rates for persons over the age of sixty-five have increased dramatically in the United States in the last decade. The suicides are associated with numerous risk factors such as financial or relational loss, physical illness, hopelessness, isolation, depression among others. Depression has for a long time been blamed as the main reason for contemplating suicide. However, according to a recent research presented in the annual American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry meeting, older adults contemplating suicide have other reasons. These include their struggles with chronic illnesses, disability and family difficulties. Hence, as the research suggests, treating depression alone among the aged is not sufficient to reduce the problem. This is what Judith Graham wishes to expound on in this article.
The report is about a recent research conducted by Dr. Gary Kennedy. Dr. Gary is the director of geriatric psychiatry and a leading investigator in mental health study. The study involved 3500 persons aged between 65 and 75 years. They were screened …show more content…
The whole need to study the social behaviors that lead to suicide thoughts and their origins is grounded in sociology and sociological theories. Currently, suicide is not a crime in the United States. A crime is a felony committed with the intention of harming others. Those who commit suicide only do so because they have no other options. They do it to end their pain. They do not have any intentions of harming others in any way. Discussions on whether committing suicide is a crime lead to questions in deviance sociology. Deviance refers to those actions that do not conform to the social norms. The behaviors referred to be deviant vary from one culture to another. Deviance hence depends on the judgment of a certain group of people. In America, committing suicide is deviant because Americans don’t like it (Crossman,