Westmoreland County among 1st in state to study suicide with aim toward prevention

Sixty Westmoreland County residents died by suicide last year.

Reducing that number is the aim of a new board that’s forming to study suicides in the county, especially those involving veterans, so the group can identify ways to prevent them.

Findings of the review board could result in legislation and policy changes at the state level, as well as replication of county-based efforts across Pennsylvania.

The group of 20 participants will get started in January, said Heather McLean, coordinator of the Westmoreland review board and outreach coordinator with Mental Health America of Southwestern PA. Members include representatives from law enforcement, corrections and human and child services.

They will be tasked with reviewing deaths by suicide and the circumstances leading up to them. All of the individuals’ identifying information will be removed during the review and their families will be notified.

“The purpose of the board is to look at the lives that people have had,” McLean said, and also “look for possible intervention that could’ve happened but didn’t.”

Coroners in Westmoreland and York will take part in the suicide mortality review pilot program after the state Department of Military and Veterans Affairs got a $600,000 cooperative agreement grant from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The cooperative agreement is part of a larger effort by the federal agency and Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The study will review those deaths in an effort to expand and implement suicide prevention measures for members of the military, veterans and their families.

Sarah Herr, executive policy specialist with the state Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, said the pilot counties will provide a report and recommendations after a year.

Veterans are 1.5 times more likely to die by suicide — and female veterans 2.2 times more likely — than Americans who did not serve their country, according to the agency.

Nationally in 2021, about 14% of 46,412 deaths by suicide of adults involved veterans, according to the 2023 National Veteran Suicide Prevention Annual Report. Those figures may be under counted, a report from America’s Warrior Partnership and Duke University indicated.

Statistics about deaths by suicide involving veterans are not included in the Westmoreland coroner’s annual reports for the last few years. There are about 22,000 veterans in the county, according to the U.S. Census.

An average of 53 people died by suicide annually between 2012 and 2021 compared with 42 people per year between 2002 and 2011, according to coroner statistics. The highest totals were 62 people in 2022, 61 people in 2016 and 60 people in 2014 and 2023.

McLean said the review board will have the opportunity to look at deaths by suicide of nonveterans as well. Westmoreland was selected for the pilot program after Coroner Tim Carson expressed interest in it through communication from the state association.

Veterans have a greater risk of suicide because of possible issues with traumatic brain injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder, said Laurie Barnett Levine, director of Mental Health America of Southwestern PA.

“When you’re in the military, you’re taught to be strong and it’s really very difficult for someone who’s a veteran to say, ‘I’m hurting,’ ” she said.

The stigma surrounding mental health care seems to be lessening as it has become more common for people with some level of fame to publicly discuss it.

“It’s become more acceptable, especially among the younger generation … they do accept it as part of their health,” she said.

But even if someone realizes they need help, they could be faced with a mental health system that is having workforce challenges, Levine said. In some local instances, a person calling for help is put on a waiting list, or told to call back, before an appointment can be made.

“People go to seek help and the help isn’t always readily available,” she said. “If people have trouble accessing services, that is a problem.”

Her organization, which celebrated its 60th anniversary this year, is trying to advocate with state legislators to look at varying insurance regulations that impact a person’s ability to get help as well as ways to make mental health care more accessible and provide more funding.

One of the key parts of Westmoreland being selected for the pilot program was a pre-existing volunteer program — the LOSS Team — whose members have been keeping track of deaths by suicide involving veterans, McLean said. The 13-member team, which responded to its first call in June 2023, visits with and calls families of those who have died by suicide to provide support and resources under a partnership with the coroner’s office.

It operates through Ray of Hope, the county’s suicide awareness and prevention task force, of which McLean is chairperson. She said the team has helped families of three veterans who died by suicide in the last two months.

Ray of Hope has regular outreach events and a strong focus on veterans in the community, said coordinator Lisa Goldberg, who also helps run the LOSS Team. The review board pilot program has the potential to make a huge difference, she said.

“We are on the cutting edge of what is going on and what can be done in the realm of suicide,” she said.

In addition to the review board, McLean said the funding will allow for numerous prevention training sessions for professionals and members of the community, plus the creation of a second LOSS Team. About 10 people are interested in joining it, she said, including a veteran who likely will start working with families of veterans who die by suicide.

Levine said the most at-risk age group for deaths by suicide are middle-aged men, which could also be a population that includes veterans. Coroner statistics show that men between 41 and 70 accounted for roughly half of the annual total of deaths by suicide in Westmoreland between 2019 and 2023.

“Those age groups kind of match and are intertwined with each other,” she said.