“On the wall of Washington County epidemiologist Kimberly Repp’s office is a sign in Latin: Hic locus est ubi mors gaudet succurrere vitae. This is a place where the dead delight in helping the living.” (Adam Wickham for KHN)

by Maureen O’Hagan

“On Kimberly Repp’s office wall is a sign in Latin: Hic locus est ubi mors gaudet succurrere vitae. This is a place where the dead delight in helping the living.

“For medical examiners, it’s a mission. Their job is to investigate deaths and learn from them, for the benefit of us all. Repp, however, isn’t a medical examiner; she’s a Ph.D. microbiologist. And as the epidemiologist for Washington County in Oregon, she was accustomed to studying infectious diseases like flu or norovirus outbreaks among the living.

“But in 2012 she was asked by county officials to look at suicide. The request led her into the world of death investigations, and it also appears to have led to something remarkable: In this suburban county of 600,000 just west of Portland, the suicide rate now is going down. It’s remarkable, because national suicide rates have risen despite decades-long efforts to reverse the deadly trend.”

Continue reading this article at California Healthline.