Mark S. Kaplan, who teaches community health at Portland State University, has studied suicide risk and prevention for 16 years. Dr. James Peake, U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs, last month appointed Kaplan to a national expert panel on suicide.

Kaplan and eight fellow panel members will convene next week in Washington, D.C., and meet with the VA Work Group on Suicide Prevention in the Veterans Population. Their charge is to write recommendations by the end of June.

Kaplan recently received a two-year, $85,000 grant from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention to study suicide among military veterans. He spoke with The Oregonian on Monday. His answers were edited for brevity and clarity:

Describe suicide's toll nationally. What's the big picture?

Suicide is one of our more enduring public health problems. Because it accounts for only 1.3 percent of deaths, it still is often looked on as a rare problem. But there were nearly 33,000 suicides in 2005. More people kill themselves than are killed by others.

What about in Oregon?

Oregon ranks in the top 10 states for rate of suicide, and in the top five for suicide rate among the elderly. The states with the highest suicide rates are west of the Mississippi. It's a convergence of factors. Guns are more available, and in more rural areas, such as eastern Oregon, access to adequate mental health care is tough.

What's the main cause of suicide?

It's never just one thing. We often like to believe there's a simple solution for a problem like suicide. There probably is not. It's not like tracking down some infectious agent. . . . The complexities are enormous.

Depression is present in many but not all cases. Sometimes physical health problems contribute, or there's some kind of existential crisis -- financial or personal hardship.

I'm on this VA panel. But it's not like you can just appoint a commission, as happened after the Challenger space shuttle disaster in 1986, and have someone hold up an O ring and say, "That's the cause." I don't think we'll find that kind of answer with suicide.

Can prevention work?

In public health, not everything is preventable in the sense that you can make sure it won't ever happen. But you can mitigate key factors. You can reduce some of the risks out there. Suicide by firearms, for example, lends itself to risk reduction. We can limit access to guns. Firearm suicide is a particular problem among veterans and older men -- 80 percent of the veterans who killed themselves did so with guns.

In 2005, the most recent year of complete statistics, 58 percent of male and 31 percent of female suicides involved firearms. Since the suicide rate is higher among men, firearms are involved in a majority of the nation's suicides.

Who is most at risk for suicide -- old people or young?

It's a myth that there's an epidemic of suicide among young people. The suicide rate rises steadily with age for men; men in their 70s and 80s have the highest rates. In women, the rate tends to peak in middle age, in their 40s, then decline.

People over 65 include 12 percent of the population but 17 percent of suicides. People aged 15 through 24 account for 14 percent of the population but 13 percent of suicides.

What about veterans?

In Oregon, the suicide rate among male veterans is more than double the rate for adult men who are not veterans. Nationally, veterans accounted for 20 percent of suicides in 2005, but in Oregon the figure was 30 percent.

If a friend or loved one or co-worker either seems suicidal or personally mentions the word, what should I do?

Many people don't want to get involved, but of course they should. The important thing is not to hold back, especially with a suicidal man, especially if he has access to a firearm. You need to get him to treatment as soon as possible.

Call a crisis line. If the person has a regular health care provider, contact that person. In the workplace, there are employee assistance programs that can help. But if someone is suicidal and has access to a gun, do not wait. Call 9-1-1.

Don Colburn: 503-294-5124; doncolburn@news.oregonian.com