Suicide: Disadvantaged Areas Increase Death Risk

Much of our surroundings may ultimately influence our mood: the people we associate with, where we live, our hobbies and how we ultimately spend our time, overall.

New findings published in the latest edition of Social Science Quarterly reveal that where individuals live can ultimately influence their risk of committing suicide. For the study, researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder examined how social climate can indeed be a factor in such a risk.

"Many people see suicide as an inherently individual act," said Justin Denney, an assistant professor of sociology at Rice and director of the Urban Health Program, part of Rice's Kinder Institute for Urban Research, in a news release. "However, our research suggests that it is an act that can be heavily influenced by broader socio-economic and family factors."

During the two-part study, researchers first analyzed data from the National Institutes of Health's National Interview Survey that includes information on over a million adults living in the U.S. between 1986 and 2003; this focused exclusively on population areas with more than 50,000 residents.

Results from the first part of the study revealed that respondents in cities with a higher percentage of family households also demonstrated a lower risk of suicide than those in cities where more of the residents lived alone or without friends.

The second half of the study revealed that after statistical adjustments for educational attainment, household income and employment, survey respondents who lived in more socio-economically disadvantaged cities had higher rates of death by suicide than counterparts.

"Thankfully, suicide is a relatively rare cause of death," Denney concluded. "But finding that the characteristics of the places we live can influence how long we live and how we die is an important consideration in addressing health disparities in the United States."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that in 2013 alone, 41,149 suicides were reported in the United States, making suicide the 10th leading cause of death for Americans; this means for that year, someone in the country died by suicide every 12.8 minutes. To calculate changes in the prevalence of suicide over time, the CDC calculates the country's suicide rate each year, expressing the number of suicide deaths that occur for every 100,000 people in the population.

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