Tippecanoe County suicide trends include elderly, women, social media
LAFAYETTE, IN — Trends in suicide data are concerning Tippecanoe County Health Department officials, moving them to put energy behind additional initiatives in an effort to decrease overall numbers.
Laura Kuhn, Suicide and Overdose Fatality Review Team coordinator for TCHD, said during a Tippecanoe County health board meeting Wednesday that suicide totals for the county stayed relatively the same, with 2025 numbers totaling 25 non-overdose suicides, three suicides from overdose, and four Purdue University student suicides.
But trends are troubling health officials, Kuhn said.
“We have seen an increase in elderly suicides. Nine out of the 25 were people over 60,” Kuhn said. “And then we saw an increase in violent female suicides. Five out of seven female suicides were gunshot wounds, which we don’t really see typically.”
When it comes to elderly suicides, Kuhn said the health department has been able to learn that those who did commit suicide had previously made comments about debilitating pain or inability to manage end-of-life diseases.
The uptick in violent suicides among females is shocking, she said.
“You just rarely see women do that, statistically,” Kuhn said. “One of the recent cases, we had the son of a woman who committed suicide say there was no way he thought his mother was capable of that because she cared so much about how she looked and presented herself. That’s usually why we see women are more likely to overdose.”
The vast majority of suicides in 2025 were people between 30 and 49 years old, Kuhn said. The health department aims to put out messaging encouraging people to take threats of suicide more seriously.
Of the 2025 victims, 32% reportedly had relationship issues, and 28% had verbally threatened suicide “multiple times” beforehand.
“It’s something that’s heard over and over again, and we don’t want someone to stay in an abusive relationship, but we want them to take threats like this seriously,” Kuhn said. “We saw it so much last year of threats of self-harm in relationships, where a partner didn’t believe them, and then they did kill themselves. It’s a hard question of how do we break that cycle?”
Youth suicide numbers aren’t included in the county’s overall suicide count, Kuhn said, but it is another area of awareness the county is taking seriously.
After a recent report that two girls, ages 11 and 13, overdosed on Benadryl in what police said was likely inspired by the social media trend dubbed the “Benadryl challenge,” Kuhn said the health department is actively pursuing opportunities to raise awareness to social media issues.
Finding ways to educate parents without promoting these trends as a whole is a challenge.
“We don’t want to draw attention, but we want to draw attention,” Kuhn said. “Yesterday, I found about 20 (social media) challenges while researching for our school safety council. It’s a question of how do we alert the parents of what’s going on on these social media sites without the kids going, Hey, I want to check this out.”
Tippecanoe County Health Officer Seema Kengeri said educating parents while informing local pharmacies on what to watch out for will be key.
“We need parents to be on alert,” Kengeri said. “A lot of times this could be an issue students are learning about through their peers and parents may be unaware that this is something that exists online.”
If anyone is considering suicide or needs emotional support, call 988, a 24-hour hotline that helps those in crisis.
Jillian Ellison is a reporter for the Journal & Courier. She can be reached via email at [email protected].
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