Between 2000 and 2009, more than 4,500 Massachusetts residents died as a result of suicide. At 8.1 deaths per 100,000 people, the suicide rate in 2009 -- the most recent year for which data are available -- was the highest it had been since 1992. Early figures from 2010 indicate that the rate continued to climb, while calls to suicide hotlines that year increased by 14 percent, according to a report from the the state Department of Public Health.
SOURCE: Massachusetts Department of Public Health
