February 9, 2012

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Iowa’s suicide rate climbs to highest level since Farm Crisis

November 28, 2009 By

State health officials are hoping to reverse an alarming increase in the number of Iowans who are choosing to take their own lives. In 2008, 376 Iowans committed suicide. That’s a nearly 14% increase over the previous year.

“I think the concern is that the economy is playing a role in these deaths,” says Dale Chell, suicide prevention coordinator at the Iowa Department of Public Health.  ”…As much as the economy can play a role, I think if there’s something to emphasize, it would be that it makes those people who are already vulnerable even more so. When they lose a house, they lose a job. It might be that trigger that makes them make that attempt, that suicide attempt that there’s nothing else to live for.”

Last year’s data is not available for all states, but according to a 19 state analysis conducted by the Wall Street Journal, the year-to-year percentage increase in Iowa suicides is second only to Tennessee. Chell says Iowa needs to find a way to help people gain access to mental health care.

“In about 90-percent of suicide deaths, there was an undiagnosed, untreated mental illness such as major depression…and if there’s a way that you can identify those people who are suffering from depression or other mental illnesses – catch them early on and provide treatment and support and counseling – then you can hopefully, down the road, prevent most of the suicide deaths that occur,” Chell says.

Despite the increase in Iowa suicides, the state’s suicide rate still ranks among the bottom half in the nation.

Filed Under: Health & Medicine

Impact of on-line shopping on holiday sales not known

November 28, 2009 By

You can now buy just about anything you can find in a store on-line, but an Iowa State University researcher says it’s still not clear how internet shopping impacts the holiday sales. Economist Meghan O’Brien says it’s hard to nail down the numbers. She says there is some data available, but she says researchers haven’t quite caught up with on-line shopping.

O’Brien says every year people spend more and more money on the internet, however in the aggregate on-line sales declined, but sales declined across the board. She says on-line sales did decline at a lower rate than sales at “brick and mortar” stores. O’Brien says the internet can serve as a research tool as well as a place to buy.

O’Brien says the internet and on-line retailers allow people to shop prices and find the best deals, so the retailers that have a brick and mortar presence along with a well managed internet site, are in the best position to capture sales on-line and in their stores. O’Brien says the down economy has people looking to big discounters for the best deals and those big discounters have the best resources to maintain and advertise their internet site.

She says it’s a “catch-22″ for smaller retailers as they need the internet to stay competitive — but because they are smaller — they have less ability to use the internet to be competitive. O’Brien says it plays back into the hands of the big discounters like Super Target, Super Walmart, Best Buy and Amazon, because they are most able to effectively use the internet to promote business. But O’Brien says internet sales aren’t going to help a smaller retailer close the gap with the big discounters.

“I don’t know that internet sales could save a lot of smaller retailers, but for smaller retailers that have a niche product, I think it could be very advantageous,” O’Brien says. She says for example, a specialty craft store could benefit by having their products more widely available on the internet.

Filed Under: Business Tagged With: