Suzi Evans knows more than most the devastating impacts suicide and mental health problems can have in a regional community.
Living in Mantung, a small country town in South Australia's Riverland, she lost her son, Murray "Muzz" Chesser to suicide four-and-a-half years ago.
She is using the experience grieving her son's death to offer mental health support and advocate for better ways to discuss such difficult topics in the community.
"[In] the local tavern the night he passed away, people knew and they walked in and didn't say anything," Ms Evans said.
"Yet, if he'd been killed in a car accident, people would've walked in and said, 'Hey, did you hear what happened to Muzz', so there's still this stigma.
"People don't know what to say and they don't know how to approach it."
Regional suicide rates higher
According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, suicide rates in regional areas nearly doubled those in major cities between 2010 and 2020.
Ms Evans wants regional communities, from the small-town pub to local media outlets, to acknowledge suicide is a real consequence of failing to address mental health concerns.
She said improving outcomes in regional areas required looking at the bigger picture.
"One of my concerns is we're starting to get a label of mental health and suicide as its own box somewhere away from everything else," Ms Evans said.
"Suicide prevention is about communities and grassroots. It's [about] access to housing, education and employment.
"Addressing that is actually suicide prevention. We need to get rid of this language of boxing and labelling everything — it's all about grassroots and communities."
A 'public health' issue
The reporting of suicide by regional media, and conversations between community members, is the focus of a new program by SA-based psychology organisation, PsychMed.
Program director Quentin Black said the topic of suicide should not be avoided in public discourse, but it needed to be constructive and aimed at reducing harm.
"We should be sharing parallel stories of people who have been successful in finding help, providing models for successfully negotiating these issues.
"There also should be information about specific illnesses and policy implications and debate."
He said "drilling down" and looking at how the public was informed could be "really helpful in shaping improved policies".
Dr Black said Australia had made a lot of progress in addressing suicide rates in regional areas but prevention needed to be approached as a public health issue.
"This is something we can prevent to a higher degree. We really need to focus in on early identification," he said.
"There's a lot of great help that's available now that wasn't there in the past."
