Rhea County Health Council members were astonished to find out at the last meeting that the county ranks eighth in the state for its suicide rate among white females.

The comprehensive data assessment, conducted by the Tennessee Department of Health and released Sept. 23, forms a "cookbook" for the state's regional health councils, according to Colleen Edgell, a health educator for the Southeast Region. The cookbook helps local health councils identify the needs of people in the area and acts as a guide in setting its priorities.

Currently, the Rhea County Health Council's priorities include prenatal care, patients leaving the county for healthcare offered locally, cancer, heart conditions, high blood pressure and flu rates.

The recent data shows that Rhea County is listed in the top 20 target populations in the state for health issues including cancer, ranking 17th in the state for cancer-related deaths and ninth among white females; suicide, ranking 15th in the state and eighth in white females; diabetes-related deaths in white males (15th) and heart disease-related deaths in African American males (13th).

Health Council members suspected that high suicide rate might have been skewed by an inordinate amount of suicide deaths a few years ago and believed that information from surrounding years would show a less staggering trend.

Carol Ricketts, chair of the Rhea County Health Council, indicated that it might be time to review the council's list of priorities by comparing the statistics to those of other years and conducting another local healthcare survey.

"You don't really know what to do with statistics unless you have something to compare them to," she said.

Mike Covington, regional prevention coordinator for the Southeast District, said that data from the study was preliminary and that officials are still learning how to interpret it all. But the suicide rate, which is more than double that of the Southeast region and the state, does warrant attention, he said.

"We just wanted to bring it to the health council's attention," said Covington. "However they want to use the data is up to them."

Anthony DeRuggiero, who attended the health council meeting for the first time Sept. 24, decided something needed to be done about the "disturbing" information. A massage therapist, he set up a booth outside the Wal-Mart Supercenter Oct. 8-10 taking donations for massage gift certificates to benefit the Rhea Family YMCA's Teen Night program.

The YMCA has agreed to DeRuggiero's suggestion to start a Teen Night just for girls, he said, in order to "get them off the streets" and help curb the suicide rate.

Asenia Hedgecoth, child and youth advocate with the Avalon Center, a counseling and advocacy center for victims of domestic violence, agreed that the suicide rate was far and away the most disturbing news from the report. Though not necessarily a suicide prevention organization, the center helps women who "feel like they have no way out" deal with emotions that might lead to suicide, she said.

"It's disturbing because you think, 'Why do they have to resort to that?'" said Hedgecoth. "I think this county focuses a lot on physical health but not as much on mental and emotional," she added.

Sources for the study included cancer incidence data from the Tennessee Cancer Registry (1997), "Health Information Tennessee" death certificate data (2000) and hospital discharge data (2000) from the Bureau of Health Informatics.

The next meeting of the Rhea County Health Council is scheduled for noon Nov. 20 at Argo's Cafeteria.

Christa Neeley can be reached at cneeley@xtn.net.