County health officials are prioritizing suicide prevention after recent state data reported Brown County had the highest suicide rate in the state for the years 2018-2022.
“It’s a very hard and very difficult subject,” Melissa Stinson-Wadell, administrator of the Brown County Health Department, said in a phone interview. “… People don’t want to talk about it.”
According to the Indiana Department of Health’s County Health Scorecard, Brown County has a statistical suicide rate of 35.2 suicides per 100,000 people, more than twice the statewide average. By comparison, Adams County in northeastern Indiana had the lowest rate, 6.7 suicides per 100,000 people.
The data and other county-by-county health indicators for Indiana can be viewed online at in.gov/healthfirstindiana/county-health-scorecard/.