Poster – Azar Abadi

Extreme weather events can directly harm individuals by disrupting their environment and producing lingering psychological distress through multiple pathways (economic strain, displacement, social isolation, and reduced access to care). This study aims to examine the potential impact of drought on suicide in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Region 7 from 2000 to 2018. HHS Region 7 includes the states of Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, and Missouri. We obtained monthly total (separated into firearm and non-firearm) suicide counts in four age groups, three races, and two gender categories from the detailed mortality dataset provided by National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) for all Region 7 counties in the study period. The drought exposure was defined based on the Evaporative Demand Drought Index (EDDI) in three timescales. We use a two-stage modeling approach and the Generalized Additive Model (GAM) to evaluate the overall effect of drought on suicide. All the covariates of the models, including age, race, and gender, were significant. Our findings indicate that drought has a higher impact on firearm suicide than non-firearm suicide. We also showed that longer-term drought episodes estimated higher rates of firearm and non-firearm suicides.