How to curb Utah’s teen-suicide rate? Hatch-convened roundtable says kids needs access to mental-health services

By Alex Stuckey | The Salt Lake Tribune

Republican state Sen. Daniel Thatcher was 11 years old when he lost his first classmate to suicide. He was 16 when he lost his close friend.

That's why, he says, it's so important to drop the stigma and talk about suicide.

"If you talk to someone, they live," Thatcher, from West Valley City, said. "If you connect them to support, they live."

Hatch convenes suicide-prevention conference

By Lois M. Collins & Lauren Fields | Deseret News

“We’ve made more progress in the last five years than in the 20 years before,” Dr. Doug Gray, a psychiatrist, professor and suicidologist at the University of Utah, told the audience at the roundtable, held at East High in Salt Lake City.

How important is social connectivity to health?

Social connectivity – spending time with friends and family, taking part in group activities or having a sense of community – may be among the most important predictors of health.

Study upon study shows the myriad ways human connection plays a valuable role in positively supporting a person’s physical and mental health. 

Having strong social ties has been shown to:

• Dramatically lower rates of disease and premature death. Those who lacked supportive relationships had a fourfold increased risk of dying six months after open heart surgery.
• Improve our long-term happiness. People’s happiness correlates to the happiness of others with whom they are connected – and people who are surrounded by happy people are more likely to be happy in the future.
• Decrease stress during major life transitions. Higher levels of happiness and optimism were associated with lower levels of stress and greater increases in perceived social support during life transitions.
• Support recovery. One study showed that higher scores on the Recovery Assessment Scale were related to both social support as well as engagement in activities.

And, the quality of our social networks has a lifetime impact on well-being as we age. 

On Tuesday, December 13, 2016, President Obama signed the 21st Century Cures Act remarking that "those of us called upon to lead this country have a duty" to stand by the families and communities struggling with addiction. The significant funding included in the bill will help fight the ongoing opioid crisis, authorizing $1 billion in grants to states over the next two years.