Why Live: How Suicide Becomes an Epidemic - Paperback

FormatBook

Language English

ISBN-13 / SKU 9798987053744

About this item

by Helen C. Epstein (Author)

What causes suicide epidemics--and how can we prevent them?

Many suicides are caused by biological mental illness, but sometimes the suicide rate of a particular group jumps--two-, three-, or even ten-fold--in a short time, behaving like an epidemic. Suicide epidemics unfold more slowly than microbial plagues like flu or malaria, but they happen far too quickly to result from genetic changes and affect far too many people to be explained away as spontaneous cases of brain injury.

These epidemics have occurred in America's rustbelt towns, Russia's cities, and indigenous communities from the Arctic to the Pacific Islands. They tend not to be associated with wars, poverty, or environmental disasters but with a rupture in the social environment so profound that people come to question their most intimate attachments. The mental pain that drives suicide has been likened to the flipside of love, but if so, how does love suddenly disappear--or seem to--from the lives of thousands of people at once? In Why Live, public health researcher Helen C. Epstein sets out to find the answer.

Number of Pages: 176

Dimensions: 0.5 x 7.4 x 5 IN

Publication Date: September 09, 2025

$19.44

Temporarily out of stock.