County sees decrease in suicides in 2022
While data recently released from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests the United States saw record-high suicides in 2022, Butler County saw a significant decrease over the same period.
According to the County Coroner Office, there were 19 suicides in 2022 — down from 37 the previous year. As of August, there have been 25 suicides in 2023.
Amy Cirelli, co-chair of the Butler County Suicide Coalition, said the number in 2022 was “much lower” than the county’s average.
“We usually have around the mid- to upper-20s, so 19 is really low,” she said of the 2022 statistics. “I know, in 2022, a lot more agencies were moving away from telehealth and getting their services delivered in the usual way.”
Cirelli suggested that the easing of COVID-19 restrictions in the county — allowing face-to-face services rather than virtual — may have played a part in mitigating suicides.
“A lot of our services are community-based, so it’s people going into someone’s home, people being in the community,” she said. “They weren’t really able to deliver those services like they would because of the restrictions.”
Also a mental health specialist with Butler County Human Services, Cirelli said staff still worked “outside the box” and made every effort to deliver.
“They figured out a way using a telehealth and phone calls and whatever they could do to maintain contact with everyone,” she said. “But it was really different, not being able to see people in person.”
September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, and the Butler County Suicide Coalition is using it to boost its messaging and host training sessions on how to recognize the signs that someone may be contemplating ending their life.
The coalition is sponsoring three QPR — or Question, Persuade, Refer — training sessions. Cirelli says the training teaches some of the basics, such as “the facts of suicide, how to recognize the signs that someone may be contemplating suicide and how to help them.”
The first training session is 5 p.m. Sept. 12 at the North Trails Public Library; the second at 2 p.m. Sept. 13 at Butler County Human Services; and the third at 5 p.m. Sept. 14 at Rose. E. Schneider Family YMCA.
The suicide coalition has hosted this training before, and Cirelli said 284 people in Butler County have been trained in QPR since 2021. The trainings have taken place at organizations such as Concordia Lutheran Ministries and schools including Knoch High School, which Cirelli said shows that people are aware suicide is an issue in Butler County.
“The more people who take it, the more people who are going to recognize the signs, (and know) how to talk to a person and how to connect them to help,” Cirelli said of the training. “Part of it is learning how to ask, what to say, what not to say, and how to react if someone says, ‘Yes, I am thinking about suicide.’”
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the county has had an average of just over 26 suicides per year. In 2019, there were 26, followed by 25 in 2020.
2021 saw a jarring increase though, with 37 suicides.
But even that increase was somewhat anomalous, according to Cirelli, with most counties instead seeing an increase in 2020 — at the height of the pandemic.
“We were thinking we were going to have a huge increase too, and when we actually had less we were kind of like, ‘That’s unusual,’” she said. “I mean, it was good, but it wasn’t what everyone else around us was seeing.”
Instead, she said the increase seemed to be “delayed” in the county until 2021, followed by the decrease to 19 the next year.
“I mean, I was happy to see such a decrease from the year before, but again — 19 — that’s still 19 people,” she said. “The work is not done, even though there was a decrease.”
County Suicides
2023: 25 (as of August)
2022: 19
2021: 37
2020: 25
2019: 26
