Orange County officials are hoping a new online resource with data on suicides will help public agencies, health providers and nonprofits fight the stigma around mental health struggles and prevent deaths.

The OC Health Care Agency on Monday unveiled a dashboard with information on suicides among county residents from 2001 to mid-2021 (the most recent data available), including breakdowns by age and gender and call volumes to help lines.

The county, with the support of the Board of Supervisors, created an office of suicide prevention in 2020. The new office put together the dashboard after recognizing the importance of information during the pandemic, when people were clamoring for COVID-19 data, OC Office of Suicide Prevention Director Bhuvana Rao said.

The goal is to be transparent and make the data available to policy makers, researchers and mental health providers (and anyone else who wants to use it), Rao said, but it’s also to raise awareness of long-term trends to help focus suicide prevention efforts and just get people talking about what can be a difficult subject.

“As we know, that stigma is our biggest barrier. What we want to do is normalize as much as possible the conversations around mental illness,” she said, so more people feel comfortable sharing their experience and seeking help when they need it.

Based on recent trends, OC public health officials are aiming prevention programs at youth, middle-aged men and older adults. Rao said one campaign involves outreach to gun shop owners (firearms are one of the most common methods of suicide) to help them recognize signs and symptoms that a customer might be planning to harm themselves and try to get the person past the immediate moment of crisis, which can save lives.

County health officials will be paying particular attention to long-term trends, Rao said, noting that Orange County didn’t appear to have a significant spike in suicides during the pandemic, “but does that mean we sit back complacently? Absolutely not.”

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