Rural and Urban Hispanic Patients of the Veterans Health Administration

Addressing the Needs of Hispanic Veterans who Live in Rural Areas to Improve Suicide Prevention Efforts

Despite the alarming recent increase in suicide rates among Hispanic Veterans, suicide among this population remains relatively understudied and little is known about their needs and how to prevent suicide in this population. A mixed methods approach was utilized to conduct a needs assessment of community suicide prevention services and resources available to Hispanic Veterans living in rural areas in the Veterans Health Administration's Veterans Integrated Services Network (VISN) 8. Five themes related to the suicide prevention's needs and gaps in services were identified: (1) lack of adequate information; (2) disruptions in social support network; (3) limited or lack of access to services; (4) risky behaviors; and (5) natural disasters. Understanding the unique needs of Hispanic Veterans in rural communities and the gaps in services in these areas can help in the development of tailored suicide prevention efforts and potentially mitigate suicide disparities.

Examination of increasing suicide rates among rural Hispanic VA patients

PURPOSE

Death by suicide is increasing more rapidly among Hispanics than non-Hispanics who use United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) health services, and the increase is most rapid among those living in rural areas. Our goal was to identify characteristics of rural Hispanic VA patients that contribute to this emerging disparity.

METHODS

We linked electronic medical records from the VA, personnel data from the US Department of Defense, mortality data from the US National Death Index, and data on area characteristics from the US Census Bureau to examine suicide trends among Hispanic VA patients from 2005 through 2019. After identifying the strongest predictors of suicide in the rural and urban Hispanic populations, we examined how those characteristics changed over time.

FINDINGS

Age and sex-adjusted suicide mortality rates were consistently higher for rural versus urban Hispanic patients beginning in 2012, with the most recent rolling 5-year average rates being 31.0 per 100,000 for rural compared to 20.3 per 100,000 for urban in 2019. Models to predict suicide had fair performance in the rural (accuracy = 0.62, 95% CI: 0.51, 0.73) and urban (accuracy = 0.67, 95% CI: 0.63, 0.70) groups. Mental health diagnoses were predictive of suicide among rural Hispanic patients, but there was no evidence that mental health diagnoses were increasing more rapidly in rural compared to urban patients.

CONCLUSIONS

While we confirmed that there is a higher rate of death by suicide among rural Hispanic VA patients relative to their urban counterparts, we were unable to identify clear drivers of this finding.