Pullman Police mental-health-related calls
2025 • About 3.7 calls per day. This is one law-enforcement agency, not all of Whitman County.
Community data
Clear numbers. Clear limits.
The Alliance brings public information into one place, explains exactly what each number measures, and identifies what Whitman County still needs to understand.
System touchpoints
Each source measures something different.
These figures cannot be added together. They cover different organizations, time periods, definitions, and encounters. They do not identify unique people or show outcomes, referrals, or follow-up.
Palouse River Counseling crisis contacts
January–June 2026. Contacts may include repeat encounters and should not be treated as 190 unique people.
Whitman County crisis contacts
June 2026 • Greater Columbia Behavioral Health’s county chart reports 70 crisis contacts for Whitman County. This is a one-month contact count, not an annual estimate and not necessarily 70 unique people.
Estimated annual Whitman share of VOA crisis calls
2026 annualized estimate • Volunteers of America reported 1,811 calls answered across the nine-county Greater Columbia region in June 2026. Whitman County is 49,000 of the region’s 786,400 people (6.23%) in Washington OFM’s 2026 estimates. Applying that share and annualizing June gives about 1,354 calls. This is a planning estimate, not an observed county count or a count of unique people, and it assumes June represents a typical month.
Whitman County deaths by suicide per 100,000
Latest 2025 community health indicator. Healthy People 2030 target: 12 or lower.
Pullman Regional Hospital • 2025
This is not the hospital’s total mental-health picture.
~200emergency-department evaluations specifically identified as suicidal ideation or suicide attempts
~100transfers for ongoing psychiatric care
What these numbers leave out
They do not include all visits involving acute psychiatric symptoms, mania, behavioral disturbances, substance-related conditions, or other mental-health concerns. They may also overlap and do not represent unique people. The hospital’s total mental-health-related emergency workload is therefore higher than the approximately 200 figure.
Suicide indicator
Whitman County’s suicide death rate is more than twice the target.
The latest reported rate is 25 deaths by suicide per 100,000 people. This is a population rate—not a count of 25 deaths.
Latest 2025 indicator represents August 2024–July 2025. Source identified in the community health indicator: National Vital Statistics System.Whitman County suicide death rate25 per 100,000
Healthy People 2030 target12 per 100,000 or lower
Whitman County’s latest reported rate is approximately 108% above the target.
The questions behind the numbers
What we still need to understand.
Local numbers are starting points for better questions about access, rural communities, unmet need, and what happens after someone asks for help.
How many people seek care but cannot find an available provider who accepts their insurance?
How do needs differ between Pullman and smaller rural communities?
Where do residents go when local services are unavailable?
What changes when hospitals, crisis services, police, schools, and providers examine trends together?
Data notes & community input
What touchpoint are we missing?
Police calls, hospital visits, crisis contacts, provider access, schools, recovery services, older-adult supports, rural transportation, and community experience each show only part of the system.
Tell us what is missing. Suggestions are reviewed before they are treated as evidence or added to future data notes.
Community surveys
Help add community experience to the data.
Numbers from agencies show only part of the picture. These open Alliance surveys ask residents, people with lived experience, families, providers, responders, educators, and others what they are seeing.
Whitman County Mental Health Community Needs Survey
The Whitman County Mental Health Alliance is working to better understand mental health needs, barriers to care, and opportunities to improve services throughout Whitman County.
Take this surveyData should create better questions—not false certainty.
Definitions, coverage, and time periods differ. The Alliance will label estimates clearly and update information as better local data becomes available.