IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/coecpo/v18y2000i4p440-448.html

Suicide as an indicator of quality of life: evidence from dialysis patients

Author

Listed:
  • JM Ford
  • DL Kaserman

Abstract

Quality of life has been measured in many different ways for patients with chronic medical conditions. What is unique about the approach used here is that it uses suicide rates as a relatively objective measure of quality of life within the population of dialysis patients. Using a Heckman selection model, we estimate the relative suicide rates across patients undergoing both hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis. Our empirical results show that patients on hemodialysis have relatively lower suicide rates after controlling for other factors. Specifically, our results indicate that 141 fewer suicides will occur for every 1,000 patients shifted from peritoneal to hemodialysis. Prior estimates of the higher costs of the latter modality yield an estimated expenditure of $42,043 per suicide avoided.

Suggested Citation

  • JM Ford & DL Kaserman, 2000. "Suicide as an indicator of quality of life: evidence from dialysis patients," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 18(4), pages 440-448, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:coecpo:v:18:y:2000:i:4:p:440-448
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1465-7287.2000.tb00040.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1465-7287.2000.tb00040.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1465-7287.2000.tb00040.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bush, Nigel E. & Haberman, Mel & Donaldson, Gary & Sullivan, Keith M., 1995. "Quality of life of 125 adults surviving 6-18 years after bone marrow transplantation," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 40(4), pages 479-490, February.
    2. Richard Rogers, 1992. "Living and dying in the U.S.A.: Sociodemographic determinants of death among blacks and whites," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 29(2), pages 287-303, May.
    3. A. H. Barnett, 1981. "Soliciting Accurate Evaluations of Public Goods," Public Finance Review, , vol. 9(2), pages 221-234, April.
    4. Lerner, D.J. & Levine, S. & Malspeis, S. & D'Agostino, R.B., 1994. "Job strain and health-related quality of life in a national sample," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 84(10), pages 1580-1585.
    5. Hamermesh, Daniel S & Soss, Neal M, 1974. "An Economic Theory of Suicide," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(1), pages 83-98, Jan.-Feb..
    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. Joe Chen & Yun Jeong Choi & Kohta Mori & Yasuyuki Sawada & Saki Sugano, 2012. "Socio‐Economic Studies On Suicide: A Survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(2), pages 271-306, April.
    2. Zhai, Muxin & Kishan, Ruby P. & Showalter, Dean, 2022. "Social capital and suicidal behaviors: Evidence from the United States counties," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 98(C).

    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. Diane Coffey & Ashwini Deshpande & Jeffrey Hammer & Dean Spears, 2019. "Local Social Inequality, Economic Inequality, and Disparities in Child Height in India," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 56(4), pages 1427-1452, August.
    2. Andrés, Antonio R. & Halicioglu, Ferda, 2010. "Determinants of suicides in Denmark: Evidence from time series data," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 98(2-3), pages 263-269, December.
    3. Antonakakis, Nikolaos, 2013. "Fiscal Austerity, Unemployment and Suicide Rates in Greece," MPRA Paper 45198, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Betsey Stevenson & Justin Wolfers, 2006. "Bargaining in the Shadow of the Law: Divorce Laws and Family Distress," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(1), pages 267-288.
    5. Yamamura, Eiji & Andrés, Antonio R., 2011. "Does corruption affect suicide? Empirical evidence from OECD countries," MPRA Paper 31622, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Zhai, Muxin & Kishan, Ruby P. & Showalter, Dean, 2022. "Social capital and suicidal behaviors: Evidence from the United States counties," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    7. Brainerd, Elizabeth, 2001. "Economic reform and mortality in the former Soviet Union: A study of the suicide epidemic in the 1990s," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(4-6), pages 1007-1019, May.
    8. Ryoichi Watanabe & Masakazu Furukawa & Ryota Nakamura & Yoshiaki Ogura, 2006. "Analysis of the Socioeconomic Difficulties Affecting the Suicide Rate in Japan," KIER Working Papers 626, Kyoto University, Institute of Economic Research.
    9. Yang, Bijou & Lester, David, 1995. "New directions for economics," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 433-446.
    10. Markowitz, Sara & Cuellar, Alison, 2007. "Antidepressants and youth: Healing or harmful?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 64(10), pages 2138-2151, May.
    11. Evan Lau & Siti Nur Zahara Hamzah & Sandra Chia Chia Tan & Biagio Simonetti, 2017. "Suicide and socioeconomic determinants in Canada: beyond morality and philosophy," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 51(4), pages 1843-1858, July.
    12. Kim, Chungah, 2025. "Social pension expansion and suicidal behaviour of older adults in Korea: A quasi-experimental study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 367(C).
    13. Schaede Ulrike, 2013. "Sunshine and Suicides in Japan: revisiting the relevance of economic determinants of suicide," Contemporary Japan, De Gruyter, vol. 25(2), pages 105-126, August.
    14. Vimefall Elin & Persson Mattias & Olofsson Sara & Hultkrantz Lars, 2022. "Is prevention of suicide worth less? A comparison of the value per statistical life," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 23(2), pages 261-275, March.
    15. Sugiyama, Yuri, 2022. "Can Soft Law Improve the Welfare of Sexual Minorities? The Case of Same-sex Partnership Policy in Japan," CEI Working Paper Series 2022-06, Center for Economic Institutions, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    16. Lien, Donald & Zhang, Shuo, 2020. "Words matter life: The effect of language on suicide behavior," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    17. Liang Choon Wang, 2016. "The effect of high-stakes testing on suicidal ideation of teenagers with reference-dependent preferences," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 29(2), pages 345-364, April.
    18. Koryu Sato & Haruko Noguchi, 2023. "Impact of Retirement on Health: Evidence from 35 Countries," Working Papers 2301, Waseda University, Faculty of Political Science and Economics.
    19. Timothy J. Classen & Richard A. Dunn, 2010. "The Politics of Hope and Despair: The Effect of Presidential Election Outcomes on Suicide Rates," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 91(3), pages 593-612, September.
    20. Tomoya Suzuki, 2008. "Economic Modelling Of Suicide Under Income Uncertainty: For Better Understanding Of Middle‐Aged Suicide," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(3), pages 296-310, September.

    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:coecpo:v:18:y:2000:i:4:p:440-448. 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: https://edirc.repec.org/data/weaaaea.html .

    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.