The CBS News (3/18, Firger) website reports that a study published online March 16 in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine compares “suicide rates in the workplace to those outside the job,” finding that “between 2003 and 2010, 1,719 people in the US committed suicide at work.” In that same time frame, “a total of 207,500 committed suicide outside the workplace.”

Newsweek (3/17, Kutner) reported that investigators “with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), which is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, used federal occupational injury databases to determine the rate at which people died by suicide while at their places of work, between 2003 and 2010.”

Related Links:

— “Suicide in the workplace: Which professions are high risk?,”Jessica Firger, The CBS News, March 17, 2015.

The New York Times (3/17, D3, Carey, Subscription Publication) reports that research published online March 13 in the journal Psychological Science suggests that “elements of social judgment and short-term memory, important pieces of the cognitive puzzle, may peak later in life than previously thought.” The study, which gathered information from 48,537 participants, also found that “an older brain…moves more slowly than its younger self, but is just as accurate in many areas and more adept at reading others’ moods — on top of being more knowledgeable.”

Related Links:

— “Older Really Can Mean Wiser,”Benedict Carey, The New York Times, March 16, 2015.

The New York Times (3/17, Parker-Pope) reports in its “Well” blog that research published in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science reveals “just how bad loneliness and social isolation, even for people who prefer their own company, can be for health.” After analyzing “data collected from 70 studies and more than 3.4 million people from 1980 to 2014,” researchers found that “people who were socially isolated, lonely or living alone had about a 30 percent higher chance of dying during a given study period than those who had regular social contact.” In addition, “the effect was greater for younger people than for those over 65,” the study found.

Related Links:

— “The Toll of a Solitary Life,”Tara Parker-Pope, The New York Times, March 16, 2015.

The Boston Globe (3/17, Rocheleau) reports that “the rate of student suicide at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology continues to be notably higher than the national average for college campuses.” Over the past 10 years, “the university’s student suicide rate has been 10.2 per 100,000 students, according to a Globe review of public records as well as university and media reports,” compared to the US “national average for college campuses” of “roughly between 6.5 and 7.5 suicides per 100,000 students.”

Related Links:

— “Suicide rate at MIT higher than national average,”Matt Rocheleau, The Boston Globe, March 17, 2015.

The Salt Lake (UT) Tribune (3/17, McDonald) reports that “treating depression may be just as important for your heart as taking care of high cholesterol,” according to a study conducted by researchers at Intermountain Healthcare. Researchers arrived at that conclusion after analyzing “patient records and rates of death, coronary artery disease and stroke for more than 26,000 patients treated by Intermountain over a three-year period,” then comparing data “to records for 5,311 patients identified as having moderate to severe depression based on a nine-question depression screening, which assessed factors such as mood, sleep and appetite.”

Related Links:

— “Utah study: Treating your depression helps your heart,”Amy McDonald, The Salt Lake Tribune, March 17, 2015.