Medically Attended Suicidality in Youth Who Live on Farms

ABSTRACT

Suicides are increasing in U.S. youth, particularly in rural areas. The influence of farming, however, is unclear, as suicide rates are higher in individual adult farm workers, but lower in farming-reliant counties. Early recognition of suicidality (suicidal ideation, intent, or attempt) is a key element of prevention, but there are no prior studies comparing suicidality in farm vs. non-farm youth. The purpose of this study was to examine associations between farm/rural residence and suicidality. Medical records were reused from an existing cohort of child and adolescent patients under surveillance for agricultural injuries in a Wisconsin healthcare system. The sample included 2,010 youth who lived on farms and 51,900 youth who did not live on farms (57% rural). The outcome was medically attended suicidality in 2017–2022 per a composite of diagnoses for suicidal ideation, attempt, or intentional self-harm that presented to ambulatory, emergency, or inpatient care settings. Suicidality was observed in 0.8% of farm, 1.8% of non-farm rural, and 1.6% of non-farm non-rural youth. After covariate adjustment, farm youth had significantly lower odds of suicidality (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] [95% confidence interval; CI] = 0.55 [0.33, 0.91], P = .019), while non-farm rural youth had significantly greater odds of suicidality (aOR [CI] = 1.21 [1.05, 1.40], P = .007), relative to non-farm non-rural youth. Children and adolescents who live on farms are about half as likely to (medically) present for suicidality as compared to their non-farm counterparts, both rural and non-rural. Future research should identify causal suicide protection factors in farm youth.

KEYWORDS:

• Farm
• youth
• suicidality
• cohort

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance of all WINS study staff.

Disclosure statement

The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial competing interests to report(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the study conclusions are unavailable for public access because informed consent to share said data (beyond the research team) was not obtained from study participants.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported, in part, by the National Children’s Center for Rural and Agricultural Health and Safety through the National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health Cooperative Agreement U54 OH009568, as well as donors to the MarshfieldClinic Research Institute’s Summer Student Research Internship Program.