But will the hypothesis hold as the newly created Suicide Review Team prepares to dissect the issue in unprecedented fashion?

“This is going to be an opportunity for us to test that, to see if it’s valid,” said Karl Rosston, Montana’s suicide prevention coordinator.

He will serve as a nonvoting member of the seven-member team, which was created by House Bill 583 and signed into law this year by Gov. Steve Bullock.

For the next three years, the panel of professionals, which includes a pastor, psychologist, psychiatrist, sheriff/coroner and licensed clinical social worker will focus on the issue of suicide and make recommendations to the governor to help prevent more deaths.

It is an unusual step to have a panel look specifically at reducing suicide.

While many states have mortality review teams, such as child fatality review teams, that may incorporate deaths by suicide, it is much less common to have a suicide-specific mortality review team, said Richard McKeon, chief of the Suicide Prevention Branch of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

“While states have not typically taken that step, the importance for suicide prevention is underscored by the fact that both the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs … have processes by which each suicide death is reviewed,” McKeon said. “The effort in Montana embodies key recommendations of the National Strategy for Suicide Prevention.”

Specifically, those recommendations are to improve and expand state/territorial, tribal and local public health capacity to routinely collect, analyze, report and use suicide-related data to implement prevention efforts and inform policy decisions.

A daylong meeting in Helena is set for Jan. 15, the first for the Suicide Review Team.

Until now, the task of reducing the state’s suicide rate has fallen solely on Rosston, who was named the state’s first suicide prevention coordinator in December 2007. He said he is eager to have a team of respected professionals study the issue with fresh eyes.

“I want to see if we’re missing any factors that could help us prevent future suicides,” Rosston said. “I want us to be able to focus on individual communities and understand specific communities and not just treat everybody as the state. I want to better understand what’s going on in local communities so I can earmark specific interventions toward that community.”

The team begins its work against the backdrop of at least 678 suicides in the past three years.

In 2010, at least 227 Montanans killed themselves. In 2011, the number dropped slightly to 225. Last year, at least 226 Montanans took their lives. In a state with about 1 million people, on average about 15 Montanans attempt suicide every day. That is approximately 5,500 documented suicide attempts each year.

All coroners in the state have received a letter seeking their cooperation, Rosston said.

Team members will be looking for specific information about each suicide: had the person been drinking, were they seeking professional help and how did they complete the suicide.

All records will be confidential, he said.

“Even more important for me is that it’s going to give me an opportunity to maybe find pockets of areas in the state where certain factors are higher than other factors so we can target our prevention efforts in specific areas around the state,” Rosston said.