Farm Suicides in Wisconsin, 2017–2018: Preliminary Findings and a Call for Future Research
1
National Farm Medicine Center, Marshfield Clinic Research Institute, Marshfield, WI 54449, USA
2
Department of Biological Systems Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Academic Editors: John McNamara and Garrett Mattos
Safety 2021, 7(3), 51; https://doi.org/10.3390/safety7030051
Received: 25 February 2021
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Revised: 10 June 2021
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Accepted: 24 June 2021
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Published: 29 June 2021
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Farm Safety)
Studies across the last few decades have consistently found farmers and farmworkers at an elevated risk of death by suicide compared to other occupational groups in the United States. Still, there is currently no comprehensive national surveillance system for agricultural-related injuries or suicides. For this study, we analyzed Wisconsin death certificate data from 2017 and 2018 to identify the burden of suicide among farmers and farmworkers. In 2017 and 2018, 44 farm-related suicides were identified, or 14.3 per 100,000 farmers and farmworkers. The median age of victims was 51.5 ± 20, and six (13.6%) were female. As these suicide cases were cross-checked, we found that none were identifiable solely from previously published news media or obituaries, indicating: (1) a clear need for a multi-sourced suicide data approach and inter-agency collaborations for future research, and (2) the need for a deeper investigation into the reporting of farm-related suicides. These data are necessary for informing state and local level policy, resource prioritization, and the evaluation of intervention efforts.
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Keywords:
agriculture; farm; suicide; injury; surveillance
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
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MDPI and ACS Style
Weichelt, B.; Burke, R.; Redmond, E.; Shutske, J. Farm Suicides in Wisconsin, 2017–2018: Preliminary Findings and a Call for Future Research. Safety 2021, 7, 51. https://doi.org/10.3390/safety7030051
AMA Style
Weichelt B, Burke R, Redmond E, Shutske J. Farm Suicides in Wisconsin, 2017–2018: Preliminary Findings and a Call for Future Research. Safety. 2021; 7(3):51. https://doi.org/10.3390/safety7030051
Chicago/Turabian StyleWeichelt, Bryan, Richard Burke, Emily Redmond, and John Shutske. 2021. "Farm Suicides in Wisconsin, 2017–2018: Preliminary Findings and a Call for Future Research" Safety 7, no. 3: 51. https://doi.org/10.3390/safety7030051
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