Self-injury mortality, albeit by suicide or lethal intoxication, spans a continuum that represents two sides of the same coin.
cause of death
There are three basic facts about death: (1) We all have to die. (2) All young deaths are tragic deaths. (3) Some of us die in ways that are more interesting than others, and those deaths often make their way into case reports. This story involves all three.
The Centers for Disease Control calculated that, on an average day, 103 Americans die in car accidents, 121 commit suicide and 49 are homicide fatalities. But that's the average day. As it turns out people die differently on Monday than they do on Saturday.
The weekly report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the dead and dying is morbidly fascinating. In both men and women, heart disease and cancer are #1 and #2 killers, respectively. However, everything changes after that.
A new study published in JAMA details the U.S. county-level trends in mortality rates for major causes of death. While a bit flawed, it's a step in the right direction as regional health disparity is often way more vital to informing policy than national tendencies.