The Washtenaw County Health Department is releasing a new Suicide Report detailing local suicide data trends through 2024. While the county’s overall rate has decreased and the suicide rate among Washtenaw residents continues to remain below both the Michigan and national suicide completion rates, the Manchester area’s rate increased and once again is the highest in the county. From 2023 to 2024, there was a 12.5% decrease in the rate of suicide completions in Washtenaw County but a 66% increase in the Manchester area.
“In 2024, our suicide completion rate reached the lowest rate since 2018,” says Deanna Price, MS, health promotion coordinator with Washtenaw County Health Department. “Our local suicide completions have declined each year since 2021. While a single suicide completion is too many, we are grateful to see a decrease in 2024.” Washtenaw County overall went from 10.4 suicide completions per 100,000 people in 2023, down to 9.1 suicide completions per 100,000 people in 2024.
In Manchester the numbers show a different story compared to the rest of the county. When looking at data by zip code there is high variability in year-to-year data so the health department looks at 3-year-average rates. In the Manchester area (48158), our 2019 to 2021 rate was 22.4 suicide completions per 100,000 people, our 2020 to 2022 rate was 18.2 suicide completions per 100,000 people, our 2021 to 2023 rate was 13.6 suicide completions per 100,000 people, and our most recent rate, 2022 to 2024, is 22.6 suicide completions per 100,000 people. This is by far the highest rate in the county with the next highest (and only other zip code above the “healthy people goal” of 12.8) being Dexter with a rate of 16.2 suicide completions per 100,000 people. By contrast, Whitmore Lake, who also was identified in the last report as concerning with a rate above the healthy people goal, dropped to 2.4 suicide completions per 100,000 people…