| West Virginia's suicide rate is higher than the national average.
The state Bureau of Public Health's Statistics Center shows that the state's rates of suicides for senior citizens and males also beat the nationwide averages.
The state's overall rate increased from 13 per 100,000 people in 1992 to 15 in 2001. The national rate decreased over that period.
The WV rate was 27 suicides per 100,000 men, compared to 18 for the nation.
The highest occurrence of suicide in West Virginia and the United States from 1999 to 2001 was among older adults.
West Virginia's average was 20 per 100,000 and the national rate was 15.
West Virginians are also more likely to use firearms to commit suicide.
West Virginia is recording more births, but fewer to teenagers, according to the Bureau of Statistics.
There were 261 more births overall between 2002 and 2003. Births to teenage mothers dropped by 70.
The state's population grew by nearly 8,500 in 2003, the most recent year studied by the bureau.
About half of West Virginia's counties experienced population growth over that period.
The state's infant mortality rate dropped from nine-point-one per thousand live births in 2002 to seven-point-three per thousand in 2003.
More than 30 percent of the state's nearly 21,000 births in 2003 were by cesarean section.
More than one in four mothers said they smoked during pregnancy.
The bureau also found that the state's marriage rate dropped for the third year in a row, from about 14,500 in 2002 to 13,700 in 2003.
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