# suicide and demography **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 21, 2004, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-and-demography/270403 "2004-10-21T13:59:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![drhess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/94ad74/32.png) [@drhess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drhess)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-and-demography/270403/1 "2004-10-21T13:59:24Z")
Are certain sub-groups in the US population (or any nation for that matter if you have the info) more likely to committ suicide than others? I had two people I know (not real close) that are gay committ suicide this summer/fall. I know students are at high risk also as the campus near me has had a few each of the past 2 years. However, it may not be the student factor so much as the youth factor (i.e., they might have still killed themselves had they not been in college). Thanks for any info. Sorry for the disturbing question. (No suicide jokes please.) ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-and-demography/270403/2 "2004-10-21T14:05:58Z")
Maybe just an urban legend but I have always heard that Las Vegas has a lot of suicide deaths. Mainly due to people gambling away their life savings and having nothing left to live for. However, this probably is not demographicaly Las Vegas residents but people from everywhere ending up in Las Vegas, losing everything, and ending it there. ---
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-and-demography/270403/3 "2004-10-21T14:08:27Z")
> [@drhess](#): > > Are certain sub-groups in the US population (or any nation for that matter if you have the info) more likely to committ suicide than others? I had two people I know (not real close) that are gay committ suicide this summer/fall. I know students are at high risk also as the campus near me has had a few each of the past 2 years. However, it may not be the student factor so much as the youth factor (i.e., they might have still killed themselves had they not been in college). > > Thanks for any info. Sorry for the disturbing question. (No suicide jokes please.) I’ll wait for someone to post a link to the stats, but definitely suicide is much more common amongst younger people. Makes some sense in that if someone has a problem with endogenous depression, and it starts at a young age, as they can kill themselves but once it will happen at a young age. A serious problem with correlating suicide with being gay is determining after the person is dead exactly what their sexual orientation is. I could easily scan with a computer program the data from death certificates for deaths from suicide, and correlate this with age, since the death certificate will list the age of the person. However death certificates don’t list sexual orientation. ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-and-demography/270403/4 "2004-10-21T14:19:30Z")
According to [this article](http://www.emedicine.com/med/topic3004.htm) > [@](#): > > In 1995, the suicide rate for men was 18.6 occurrences out of 100,000 population, and for women it was 4.1 occurrences out of 100,000 population. However, women make far more attempts than men…In men, the rate for white men in 1995 was 19.7 cases per 100,000 population, for black men it was 12.4 cases per 100,000 population, and for Hispanic men it was 12.3 cases per 100,000 population. However, the rate for Native American men was 20.1 cases per 100,000 population for the same year…People older than 65 years have the highest rate of suicide. So demographics makes a big difeerence. ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-and-demography/270403/5 "2004-10-21T14:22:38Z")
The [CDC](http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheets/suifacts.htm) says pretty much the same thing ---
**Author:** ![irishgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8edcca/32.png) [@irishgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/irishgirl)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-and-demography/270403/6 "2004-10-21T14:32:44Z")
Being male is your biggest risk factor. IIRC (was quoted in a psychiatry lecture, can’t remember cite) 80% of sucessful suicides in the USA are male. There are 2 peaks, young men aged 16-30, and older men aged 45-70. If you think about it, it makes sense. Young men, when they turn their anger and aggression inward, are more likely to be successful in their suicide attempts, because of the methods they choose (hanging, drowning, shooting). Men may have more difficulty accessing help to deal with the reasons for their distress. Young men, especially poor, non academically gifted young men, are a particularly disadvantaged group. If they also have a poor social network and few supports, depression can easily lead to suicide before someone is able to intervene. Older men are at risk, especially if they are single, or recently widowed. This isolation can lead to despair and a feeling that they are no longer needed and will not be missed. This is worsened if there are no children, or the man has a poor relationship with his children. Older men with alcohol dependence are also more at risk, often because they believe that their life has been a waste, will not improve, and they can neither see a future while they continue to drink, nor do they feel able to quit. Also, an older man, especially a single or widowed older man, with no dependants, may seek suicide as a solution to the diagnosis of a terminal illness, or as a way or dealing with a chronic disabling or painful condition. Women, especially women who are mothers, are less likely to commit suicide, and are more likely to survive a suicide attempt. ---
**Author:** ![BurnMeUp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@BurnMeUp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BurnMeUp)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-and-demography/270403/7 "2004-10-21T15:32:56Z")
> [@irishgirl](#): > > Being male is your biggest risk factor. IIRC (was quoted in a psychiatry lecture, can’t remember cite) 80% of sucessful suicides in the USA are male. However, this also brings up an interesting issue. If the 80% successful rate in men verses the higher number of attempts by women is considered, one could come up with a few postulates: The first one you suggested, men might choose much more “final” suicide options (either violent or abrupt). Maybe more women who are depressed use it as a cry for help more than a way to terminate thier life. I.E. chosing a way that they are less likely to die or more likely to be saved. Maybe this goes back to the idea of machismo and the male being unable to accept weakness and ask for help with depression issues. ---
**Author:** ![FlippyFly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e95f7d/32.png) [@FlippyFly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlippyFly)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-and-demography/270403/8 "2004-10-21T17:10:46Z")
Some suicide facts from [Harpers.org](http://Harpers.org) (sites for specific facts are availible there) [http://www.harpers.org/Suicide.html](http://www.harpers.org/Suicide.html) - Number of New York City pedestrians splattered with blood last winter after a suicide’s 17-story jump: 3 [Bellevue Hospital Center (N.Y.C.)] - Factor by which the average suicide rate in a city where gambling is legal exceeds that in a city where it is not: 2 [Professor David P. Phillips, University of California at San Diego (La Jolla, Calif.)] - Percentage change since 1997 in the number of South Korean suicides: +36 [Korean Institute of Criminology (Seoul)] - Chance that a student death at school in the last year was a suicide: 1 in 5 [The National School Safety Center (Westlake Village, Calif.)] - Rank of cancer and suicide, respectively, among the top causes of death of Japanese bureaucrats last year: 1, 2 [Embassy of Japan (Washington)] - Ratio of the number of U.S. soldiers killed by hostile fire since 1990 to the number who have committed suicide: 1:5 [U.S. Army (Arlington, Va.)] - Number of “sub-harm” suicide “gestures” made this year by detainees held at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay: 30 [Joint Task Force 160, U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba] - Chance that an American believes that “suicide is an acceptable solution in certain circumstances”: 1 in 4 ---
**Author:** ![chukhung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e79b87/32.png) [@chukhung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chukhung)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-and-demography/270403/9 "2004-10-21T17:12:35Z")
This [Staff Report](http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/msuicide.html) discusses which professions have the highest suicide rate. You might also be interested in this [posting](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=143893) in which I quoted an article about a study that showed that New York’s police officers are actually no more likely to commit suicide than other New Yorkers. Unfortunately, I believe that article now costs money to look at online. ---
**Author:** ![Padeye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@Padeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Padeye)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-and-demography/270403/10 "2004-10-21T18:22:55Z")
> [@drhess](#): > > Are certain sub-groups in the US population (or any nation for that matter if you have the info) more likely to committ suicide than others? The answer is yes. Your question seems to imlpy “what are they?” That’s pretty broad to be asking here. I’m sure someone like the CDC has suicide statistics. Interpreting what they mean is another matter. You are already making an important distinction between correlation and cause. Sometimes it’s obvious and other times it isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Jinx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Jinx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jinx)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-and-demography/270403/11 "2004-10-21T19:27:34Z")
> [@irishgirl](#): > > Being male is your biggest risk factor. You see what you women do to us? 😉 > [@irishgirl](#): > > Women, especially women who are mothers, are less likely to commit suicide, and are more likely to survive a suicide attempt. That’s odd because I know three people who committed suicide, and all three were women with children. The three were for different reasons: financial failure, abusive husband, and clinical depression. - Jinx ---
**Author:** ![Antonius\_Block](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/51bf81/32.png) [@Antonius\_Block](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antonius_Block)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-and-demography/270403/12 "2004-10-21T20:55:33Z")
> [@FlippyFly](#): > > - Ratio of the number of U.S. soldiers killed by hostile fire since 1990 to the number who have committed suicide: 1:5 Note that the “Harper’s Index” from which this is taken is dated January 2002. Presumably the ratio has changed considerably since the US invasion of Iraq. ---
**Author:** ![Roches](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bc8723/32.png) [@Roches](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roches)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-and-demography/270403/13 "2004-10-21T21:10:48Z")
The CDC(&P) has detailed statistics on suicide by sex, race or Hispanic origin and age in [this document](http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/pubs/pubd/hus/listables.pdf). See Table 46 for information on suicide rates by year and Table 58 for information on suicidal ideation, suicide attempts and injurious suicide attempts among high school students. There must be figures that consider sexual orientation also. Whites, both male and female, are more likely to die by suicide than other racial group, and white males are more likely to die by suicide than any other group considered in the statistics. Since mental illness, not demographics, is the single most important correlation with suicide rate, this would suggest that mental illnesses such as depression are most common in this group. There are some other interesting statistics in Table 58. Female high school students, for example, are more likely than males to consider or attempt suicide, but males that attempt suicide are more likely to injure themselves severely doing so. It’s often said that men attempt suicide less often than women but are more likely to succeed, because they tend to choose methods that are more lethal, such as firearms rather than drug overdose. To consider the demographics of suicide you really need to consider the demographics of depression, whether it’s caused genetically or by severe loss (as with widows or compulsive gamblers) or isolation or torment (as with gay people). A person who is not depressed is much more likely to endure circumstances than to kill themselves because of them. For example, many poor people are not particularly unhappy, and so they are not likely to attempt suicide to escape their economic situation. A wealthy person who becomes poor because of gambling or investment losses is much more likely to become depressed, and much more likely to kill themselves. ---
**Author:** ![Opus1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/858c86/32.png) [@Opus1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Opus1)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2004, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-and-demography/270403/14 "2004-10-22T01:38:45Z")
Nobody’s mentioned the country music link yet? Shame on y’all! [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=95183303](http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=95183303)