Raising the minimum wage can prevent suicide

Raising the minimum wage by just $1 in each state could have prevented more than 27,000 suicides between 1990 and 2015, according to a new report in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health reported on by NPR.

Between the lines: Increasing the minimum wage would be especially helpful when unemployment is high, the authors found.

The big picture: Researchers are exploring links between the economy and health, and not just in terms of suicide. Opioid overdoses have been referred to as "deaths of despair," and are most prevalent in parts of the country where jobs have been declining.

Go deeper: Deaths from suicide, drugs and alcohol hit record highs in 2017, Axios' Stef Kight reported last year.

• "The drug and suicide epidemics have hit rural America hardest, at the same time that blue collar jobs are disappearing and technology and automation is transforming the workforce," she notes.

Go deeper: The jobs with the highest rates of suicide in the U.S.

If you have any thoughts of self-harm or suicide, please pick up the phone right now and call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255.