STATE OF MIND : Choosing Life

In a city once notorious for celebrity overdoses, suicide has become almost passe. Never have Angelenos been less likely to take their own lives.

In 1991, the most recent year for which there are statistics, 400 city residents committed suicide, the fewest since 1957. Nationally, from Seattle to Miami, suicide is up, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. But since 1970, L. A.’s suicide rate per 100,000 people has declined more than 50%, from 23.9 to 11.8.

“So many factors affect suicide that pinpointing the key to Los Angeles’ dramatic decrease is difficult,” says UCLA psychiatry professor Norman Tabachnick, a former associate chief psychiatrist at the L. A. Suicide Prevention Center. Los Angeles, he says, has some of “the largest and most sustained suicide prevention programs in the world. It is possible that these efforts are now having an effect.”

Californians in general seem to be choosing life. Rates are down 30% in Orange County, 25% in Oakland, 22% in San Diego and 15% in Santa Barbara. Maybe it’s something in the water.