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In April, we called on state lawmakers to pass – for a second time – legislation creating a Rural Suicide Prevention Council to address increasing rates of suicide in rural counties.
Lawmakers have done their part.
Now it's time for Hochul to do hers. The numbers haven't changed since April when we called on the legislature to create the council. According to the 2026 Chautauqua Opportunities Inc. Community Needs Assessment, the age-adjusted rate of hospitalization for self-inflicted wounds is 8.5 per 10,000 people in the county compared to 5.6 per 10,000 statewide. The hospitalization rate for self-inflicted injuries is even greater for those aged 15-19 in the county, with that rate being 24.4 per 10,000 in comparison to the statewide rate of 13.7 per 10,000. Finally, the assessment stated that the mortality rate for suicides in the county is 12.9 per 100,000 individuals, compared to 9.7 per 100,000 for the state.
Jeff Winton, founder of Rural Minds, a nonprofit organization working to decrease rates of rural suicide, has said rural Americans, including those in New York state, are nearly 50% more likely to die by suicide than residents living in more urban areas while young people growing up in rural areas like Chautauqua County are 74% more likely to die by suicide than their urban peers.
Those numbers should be a concern for anyone who lives in a rural area. And it's not as if the governor has turned a blind eye toward teenagers' mental health. Hochul has shown herself to be concerned with the mental health of youth in the past, particularly with limits on the use of cell phones in schools, changes to state laws governing social media use by teens, expansion of school-based mental health clinics, and funding for community-based behavioral health and wellness hubs for youth up to age 24, and statewide teen mental health first aid training. Creating a Rural Suicide Prevention Council would be a logical extension of her stated focus on teenagers' mental health as well as helping older rural New Yorkers who too often feel they're being left behind.
Creating a Rural Suicide Prevention Council won't solve the state's rural suicide problem on its own, but it should bring additional state resources to the efforts people like Winton are making to improve the situation in rural areas. Hochul should sign this bill once it is delivered to her desk.