Whether by coincidence or opportunity to strike while the Robin Williams news cycle is hot, the Orange County Health Care Agency released a suicide report Thursday.
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Covering the years 2009 through 2011, the report finds:
* There were 835 suicides in Orange County for a rate of nine per 100,000 people. That's down slightly from the state rate of 9.9 and the national rate of 12 per 100,000.
* Thirteen Orange County cities exceeded the county rate.
* The highest rate of suicides was in Laguna Beach, where there were 21.1 per 100,000 population. The actual number of people was 17, and the majority died by drug overdose.
* The lowest rate of suicide over the same three year period was in Villa Park. That's because there weren't any.
* Next highest after Laguna Beach was a tie between Dana Point and Newport Beach, where the rate was 13.5 per 100,000 population and the actual number of people were 15 and 40 respectively.
* The largest number of people in an Orange County city who committed suicide from 2009-2011 was the 72 in Anaheim, but the population there made the rate 7.5 per 100,000 population.
* Of those who committed suicide in Orange County over the three years, 75 percent were men. The highest rate of men were 75 or older.
* Most men opt for violent deaths while most women choose drug overdose or poison. The highest number of self-inflicted deaths were by men ages 45-54.
* The highest rate of suicides was among non-Hispanic whites (15.4 per 100,000 population), followed by blacks (8.8), Asian/Pacific Islanders (6.4) and Latinos (3.1).
* The suicide rate among military veterans is three times higher than civilians. Vets make up 15 percent or Orange County suicides.
* Guns were used in 33.2 percent of suicides, followed by hanging or strangulation (33.1) and poisoning or drug overdose (22.5).
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.