The American West is is known for its beauty and its grandeur, but it's also known as a suicide belt.

Every demographic group that we look at has higher rates of suicide in the Mountain West compared to the rest of the country.

So the big question why?

Grief is something that people don't understand until you've experienced it, you have no idea.

Suicide, historically, despite it being a leading cause of death, has not received very much attention.

It's important that academia get involved in these conversations.

Suicide is a wicked problem.

There is no one cause and any single death.

There is no one solution either.

We think that there is a relationship between residing and an increased elevation and an increased risk of suicidal behaviors.

Ill never, in anything else I ever do, come across an association that's not as strong.

When you start looking at hundreds of cases of suicide, we can start looking at patterns.

It's really important for us to continue to do scientific research about this problem into treatments that will work for people.

That's the goal.

Trying to understand why the suicide rate is so high in the Mountain West is a really complex question.

It's going to end up being a multifaceted answer.