Citation

Caine ED. Am. J. Public Health 2013; 103(9): e3.

Affiliation

Eric D. Caine is with the Injury Control Research Center for Suicide Prevention and the Department of Psychiatry, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, NY, and the VA Center of Excellence for Suicide Prevention, Canandaigua, NY.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, American Public Health Association)

DOI

10.2105/AJPH.2013.301444

PMID

23865703

Abstract

In their letter, Kaplan et al. offer an opportunity to grapple with a yet-to-be-answered question: Does suicide prevention include efforts to prevent or treat alcohol misuse and related disorders when affected persons are not now suicidal? Alcohol certainly plays an exacerbating and corrosive role in the downhill slide (often lasting years or decades) of many persons who ultimately die by suicide. And intoxication surely is a permissive or facilitating factor for large numbers of individuals who attempt suicide, as the authors emphatically remind us. (Am J Public Health. Published online ahead of print July 18, 2013: e1. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2013.301444).

Language: en