My buddy Jack Reacher, by way of Lee Child, says it’s true: there are more suicides in the western US than in the East. Unfortunately, my Google Fu seems weak and I can’t locate anything that looks like proof.
Anyone know if this is true? And why?
Odd, it seems to me that states known for having really big, famous cities (New York, Chicago, LA/SF) have lower suicide rates, while more rural or sparse states are higher. I wonder if it’s coincidental since the sparser states are more Western, or if it’s the other way around, or none of the above.
Yeah, I did find something similar to that, and it seems the west, except for California for some reason, is indeed higher.
But why? Some of the reasons I found while searching were weak, at best. Better access to means of suicide in West was one. Really? In today’s world, I just don’t buy that one.
Now Alaska, I can understand. Darkness 18 hours a day could drive anyone around the bend…
The page I linked to mentioned having firearms in the house is one of the risk factors (and used in more then half of the suicides in that data). Are the people in those states more likely to have firearms in the house?
Now, my next questions come from total ignorance of guns and have nothing whatsoever to do with politics…
Are those states hunting states (more so then the others)? Are any of them concealed or open carry states? Does answering yes to those questions make having a gun in the house more likely?
I don’t know, Wisconsin is a damn big hunting state (or at least my family and all their friends there are, so I may be skewed), and it’s on the low end of the spectrum.
The last time this came up, people suggested it might be related to isolation. One can see how spending day, weeks, months with little or no human contact could certainly intensify depression and make everything seems that much more hopeless–like nothing is ever going to change. Also, it reduces the chances of anyone noticing something is wrong.
On the other hand, in a city, even if you have no friends or family you are probably interacting with people every day. Even if you never leave your house or apartment, you are hearing people everyday.
A University of Florida study examined suicide rates looking for a correlation to geography, population density, and other characteristics (including guns).
“In sparsely populated areas, people tend to have weaker social support networks and feel less strongly connected to their community,” he said. “The resulting social isolation may leave people vulnerable to suicide and the lack of mental health facilities makes it more difficult for them to get help.”
This. As someone living in a rural western state, I can tell you that both these factors are significant. I live in a small town, but there are people who live many miles from their nearest neighbors. But I think the lack of mental health services is even more significant. There is a real dearth of therapists and an even greater scarcity of psychiatrists out here, especially those specializing in child and adolescent psychology–and teens, of course, have a higher suicide rate than other age groups. I’ve had students (I teach at a high school.) who have had to travel 100 miles to get to a shrink who treats adolescents, and I understand they have to wait three months or more for an appointment. Of course, there are emergency services for people who are in crisis.
Finally, western states (except California) tend to be very conservative. There are a lot of people here who still think having mental health issues is shameful and won’t seek help or, in some cases, allow their kids to do so.
Is there a term for a measure of the population density that the average person lives at in a region? States out west have very low population densities, but I’m not sure that means that a meaningful chunk of the population is living by themselves or with just their immediate families and no one else for miles around.
Nevada, for example, has one of the lowest population densities in the US, but in reality, 85% of the population lives in two counties that have very large population densities. Granted thats probably an extreme case, but I think most people live in at least small towns, even in states with very low population densities and few cities.
I haven’t seen demographics like that, but this page does have a ranking near the bottom with 10,000+/mile population density areas by state (under the heading States). Even Las Vegas doesn’t register, since the density is only 4222. Western population density even in cities isn’t very high, since those cities are much more spread out than in the east.
An older paper from the cdc says basically the same thing as stated in the OP, regarding suicide rates per capita in the western US vs eastern US (except CA) but at the time that paper was written there wasn’t enough info available or considered reliable enough to be able to determine the reasons for this.
Anecdotally, my relatives in NY have only visited the midwestern and northwestern branches of our family once, and the reason given was “the horizon was too far away and the sky was too big” for the family matriarch at the time.
ETA I wonder if that could be part of it, some kind of inability to cope with the openess
Alcohol use/abuse is in undoubtedly a factor in suicide, and I wonder if there are higher rates of alcoholism/abuse in the West. A dated study looking at Native Alaskans found that:
“Alcohol abuse was diagnosed more often than any other psychiatric disorder in the suicide group and appears to be the most important antecedent of suicide in this study.”
This study notes that “Impulsivity and aggression are highly implicated in suicidal behaviour” and depressed people who are alcohol dependent are more likely to attempt suicide than those who are not.
So a look at state data around drinking/drug abuse might be interesting.
Thats part of my point. Las Vegas population densities are the-times lower then Manhatten, but its kinda silly to say someone in Las Vegas is ten times more "isolated’ then someone in Manhatten. A person can only have so many personal acquaintances, and once you live close to enough people to have regular contact with enough people to fill that number, your not really isolated anymore. I’d say any town with more then a thousand or so people will probably be enough that you can find a few tens of people to be friends with if you so choose. And even in the big rural states, I think the vast majority of people live near at least that many people.
Out of curiosity I did some checking and the suicide rate in Alberta (the mountain province) trends higher than the national average in Canada and in general the suicide rate increases as you go west.
Simplicio, I’m not sure it’s simply a matter of knowing people. The lower population densities (and overall lower population) might be a proxy for the amount of resources available.
I agree. I’m just responding to the idea that isolation in and of itself is particularly prominent in large rural states. I agree that lack of mental health resources might be a factor, a town of 6,000 is plenty big enough to keep people from being isolated in the sense of not knowing many people, but its probably not big enough to support a psychiatrist.
It would be interesting to find out how much more likely (if any, I guess) someone living alone is likely to commit suicide than someone living with others. I know from my own experience that living in isolation with someone who’s an alcoholic or abusive or has any of a host of other problems is pretty tough. Either way, the lack of mental health services would seem to me to be at least as significant as population density–not that low population density and a dearth of mental health care aren’t related.