Mike Wolanin | The Republic Charlotte Barton-Coombs, executive director of Family Services Inc., poses for a photo in the organization’s offices inside the Doug Otto United Way Center in Columbus, Ind., Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2024.
The number of people in Bartholomew County who have taken their own lives has more than doubled this year and has reached the highest annual total on record.
As of Wednesday, 18 people in Bartholomew County had died by suicide this year, the highest annual total on record in data going back to 2018, according to the Bartholomew County Coroner’s Office.
By comparison, there were eight suicides in 2023 and six the year before that, according to county records. Officials fear the total could reach 20 if the current pace continues through the end of the year. The previous high was 16 in 2019.
This year, the overwhelming majority of people who have taken their own lives have been white males, according to the Bartholomew County Coroner’s Office. The ages range from 21 to 70, with an average age of 43, according to county records.
Thirteen of the death by suicides this year involved guns — or about 72% — while four were death by hanging. One suicide was due to exsanguination, a medical term for severe loss of blood.
“I think it’s very fair to say that we are seeing a public health crisis,” said Charlotte Barton Coombs, executive director of Family Service Inc. and coordinator of the Bartholomew County Suicide and Overdose Review Team, or SOFR. “…This public health issue, this crisis, is not going to get better any time soon.”
Barton Coombs said suicide is a complex issue and many factors are likely driving the increase this year, including social isolation and financial problems, among others.
“When we lose that connection between human beings, we see an increase in mental health challenges,” Barton Coombs said. “We see an increase in suicidal thinking. We see an increase in reports of loneliness.”
Formed in late 2022, the SOFR team is a multi-disciplinary group that reviews local overdose deaths and deaths by suicide to examine what happened, what gaps may exist in local prevention efforts and develop data-informed prevention initiatives to prevent future deaths.
Currently, the SOFR team is looking to change its structure as part of an effort to “figure out how in the world do we help our community in reducing suicide,” Barton Coombs said.
Officials have decided to create a two-tier SOFR team starting next year. The first tier will be called the “review team,” which will be made up of the core group of professionals who review the fatalities and make recommendations.
The second tier will be called the “action team,” which will be tasked with taking the review team’s recommendations and figuring out how to put them place.
“We’ve identified that our community would really be served well if we had a two-tier SOFR team,” Barton Coombs said. “…Right now, our SOFR team makes wonderful recommendations, but it kind of stops there. …We report those back to the state, but there’s no momentum.”
The action team does not review the fatalities or have access to protected health information, Barton Coombs said. Instead, the action team is just given the review team’s recommendations and tries to determine how to implement them in Bartholomew County.
Currently, the SOFR team is accepting applications from community members who want to be part of the action team, Barton Coombs said. Officials hope to have 12 to 15 community members on the team.
“There is something more that as a community we can do,” Barton Coombs said. “This really needs to be looked at from a public health perspective and not just a single identified individual with a mental health issue.”
