IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/socsci/v96y2015i2p313-329.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Suicide in the City: Do Characteristics of Place Really Influence Risk?

Author

Listed:
  • Justin T. Denney
  • Tim Wadsworth
  • Richard G. Rogers
  • Fred C. Pampel

Abstract

type="main"> This article investigates the role of social context on individual suicide mortality with attention paid to the possibility that contextual effects are simply the sum of individual characteristics associated with suicide. We use restricted data from the 1986–2006 National Health Interview Survey-Linked Mortality Files, which include nearly 1 million records and 1,300 suicides, to examine the role of familial and socioeconomic context on adult suicide. Results show that adults living in cities with more socioeconomic disadvantage and fewer families living together have higher odds of suicidal death than adults living in less disadvantaged cities and cities with more families living together, respectively, after controlling for individual-level socioeconomic status, marital status, and family size. The findings support classic sociological arguments that the risk of suicide is indeed influenced by the social milieu and cannot simply be explained by the aggregation of individual characteristics.

Suggested Citation

  • Justin T. Denney & Tim Wadsworth & Richard G. Rogers & Fred C. Pampel, 2015. "Suicide in the City: Do Characteristics of Place Really Influence Risk?," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 96(2), pages 313-329, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:socsci:v:96:y:2015:i:2:p:313-329
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/ssqu.12165
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Singh, G.K. & Siahpush, M., 2002. "Increasing rural-urban gradients in US suicide mortality, 1970-1997," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 92(7), pages 1161-1167.
    2. Knox, K.L. & Conwell, Y. & Caine, E.D., 2004. "If Suicide Is a Public Health Problem, What Are We Doing to Prevent It?," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 94(1), pages 37-45.
    3. Justin T. Denney & Richard G. Rogers & Patrick M. Krueger & Tim Wadsworth, 2009. "Adult Suicide Mortality in the United States: Marital Status, Family Size, Socioeconomic Status, and Differences by Sex," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 90(5), pages 1167-1185, December.
    4. Joshua Klugman & Gretchen Condran & Matt Wray, 2013. "The Role of Medicolegal Systems in Producing Geographic Variation in Suicide Rates," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 94(2), pages 462-489, June.
    5. Agerbo, Esben & Sterne, Jonathan A.C. & Gunnell, David J., 2007. "Combining individual and ecological data to determine compositional and contextual socio-economic risk factors for suicide," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 451-461, January.
    6. Jacques van der Gaag & Eugene Smolensky, 1982. "True Household Equivalence Scales And Characteristics Of The Poor In The United States," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 28(1), pages 17-28, March.
    7. Li, Zhuoyang & Page, Andrew & Martin, Graham & Taylor, Richard, 2011. "Attributable risk of psychiatric and socio-economic factors for suicide from individual-level, population-based studies: A systematic review," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(4), pages 608-616, February.
    8. Chuang, Hwei-Lin & Huang, Wei-Chiao, 1996. "A reexamination of "sociological and economic theories of suicide: A comparison of the U.S.A. and Taiwan"," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 421-423, August.
    9. Duncan, Craig & Jones, Kelvyn & Moon, Graham, 1996. "Health-related behaviour in context: A multilevel modelling approach," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 42(6), pages 817-830, March.
    10. Crawford, M. J. & Prince, M., 1999. "Increasing rates of suicide in young men in England during the 1980s: the importance of social context," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 49(10), pages 1419-1423, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hagedoorn, Paulien & Helbich, Marco, 2022. "Longitudinal effects of physical and social neighbourhood change on suicide mortality: A full population cohort study among movers and non-movers in the Netherlands," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 294(C).
    2. Houle, Jason N. & Light, Michael T., 2017. "The harder they fall? Sex and race/ethnic specific suicide rates in the U.S. foreclosure crisis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 114-124.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Charis E. Kubrin & Tim Wadsworth, 2009. "Explaining Suicide Among Blacks and Whites: How Socioeconomic Factors and Gun Availability Affect Race‐Specific Suicide Rates," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 90(5), pages 1203-1227, December.
    2. Kyung-Sook, Woo & SangSoo, Shin & Sangjin, Shin & Young-Jeon, Shin, 2018. "Marital status integration and suicide: A meta-analysis and meta-regression," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 197(C), pages 116-126.
    3. Hagedoorn, Paulien & Helbich, Marco, 2022. "Longitudinal effects of physical and social neighbourhood change on suicide mortality: A full population cohort study among movers and non-movers in the Netherlands," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 294(C).
    4. Anna Oksuzyan & Sven Drefahl & Jennifer Caputo & Siddartha Aradhya, 2023. "Is it Better to Intermarry? Immigration Background of Married Couples and Suicide Risk Among Native-Born and Migrant Persons in Sweden," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 39(1), pages 1-26, December.
    5. Jakobsen, Andreas Lindegaard & Lund, Rolf Lyneborg, 2022. "Neighborhood social context and suicide mortality: A multilevel register-based 5-year follow-up study of 2.7 million individuals," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 311(C).
    6. Kim, Myoung-Hee & Jung-Choi, Kyunghee & Jun, Hee-Jin & Kawachi, Ichiro, 2010. "Socioeconomic inequalities in suicidal ideation, parasuicides, and completed suicides in South Korea," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(8), pages 1254-1261, April.
    7. Ceddia, M.G. & Bardsley, N.O. & Goodwin, R. & Holloway, G.J. & Nocella, G. & Stasi, A., 2013. "A complex system perspective on the emergence and spread of infectious diseases: Integrating economic and ecological aspects," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 124-131.
    8. Richardson, Cara & Robb, Kathryn A. & O'Connor, Rory C., 2021. "A systematic review of suicidal behaviour in men: A narrative synthesis of risk factors," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 276(C).
    9. Church, A. & Mitchell, R. & Ravenscroft, N. & Stapleton, L.M., 2015. "‘Growing your own’: A multi-level modelling approach to understanding personal food growing trends and motivations in Europe," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 71-80.
    10. Eleftherios Goulas & Athina Zervoyianni, 2023. "Suicide mortality, long‐term unemployment, and labor‐market policies: Evidence from European countries," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 75(4), pages 1112-1139, October.
    11. Pearce, Jamie & Barnett, Ross & Jones, Irfon, 2007. "Have urban/rural inequalities in suicide in New Zealand grown during the period 1980-2001?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 65(8), pages 1807-1819, October.
    12. Fredrik Carlsson & Peter Martinsson, 2001. "Willingness to pay for reduction in air pollution: a multilevel analysis," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 4(1), pages 17-27, March.
    13. Kai Chen & Xiaoping Lin & Han Wang & Yujie Qiang & Jie Kong & Rui Huang & Haining Wang & Hui Liu, 2022. "Visualizing the Knowledge Base and Research Hotspot of Public Health Emergency Management: A Science Mapping Analysis-Based Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(12), pages 1-23, June.
    14. Evans, William N. & Garthwaite, Craig & Moore, Timothy J., 2022. "Guns and violence: The enduring impact of crack cocaine markets on young black males," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    15. M Gould & K Jones & G Moon, 1997. "Guest Editorial," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 29(4), pages 581-584, April.
    16. Easton, Sue & Ferrari, Ed, 2015. "Children's travel to school—the interaction of individual, neighbourhood and school factors," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 9-18.
    17. Allison Milner & Andrew Page & Anthony D LaMontagne, 2013. "Long-Term Unemployment and Suicide: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(1), pages 1-6, January.
    18. Billings, Katie R. & Cort, David A. & Rozario, Tannuja D. & Siegel, Derek P., 2021. "HIV stigma beliefs in context: Country and regional variation in the effects of instrumental stigma beliefs on protective sexual behaviors in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Southern Africa," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 269(C).
    19. Jane Pirkis & Dianne Currier & Peter Butterworth & Allison Milner & Anne Kavanagh & Holly Tibble & Jo Robinson & Matthew J. Spittal, 2017. "Socio-Economic Position and Suicidal Ideation in Men," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 14(4), pages 1-11, March.
    20. Jean-Michel Hourriez & Bernard Legris, 1995. "Le niveau de vie relatif des personnes âgées," Économie et Statistique, Programme National Persée, vol. 283(1), pages 137-158.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:socsci:v:96:y:2015:i:2:p:313-329. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0038-4941 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.