More Alaskans commit suicide in the spring

SIKU CIRCUMPOLAR NEWS SERVICE

Between 1990 and 2002, there were 1,618 suicides in Alaska, and that over this 13-year period, 153 people of them took their own lives in May, more than in any other month.

April followed, with 150 suicides.

The fewest suicides occurred in December and October, with 117 in each of those months. November was ninth, with 131.

Susan Soule, program coordinator with the Alaska Division of Behavioral Health, said the public often links the winter months and winter holidays with higher suicide numbers.

“It may be that bad things around the holidays are more newsworthy because they conflict with the sort of forced commercial gaiety of the season,” Soule told the Anchorage Daily News. “There is some increased stress around the holidays… maybe there’s an oversimplification of the link between stress and suicide.”