http://vitals.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/05/02/18020758-suicide-rates-go-up-for-middle-aged-cdc-finds?lite
QuoteThey show a 28 percent rise in suicide rates for people aged 35 to 64 between 1999 and 2010. Rates for children and younger adults, and people over 65, didn't change much over the same time, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports.
"Most suicide research and prevention efforts have focused historically on youth and the elderly. This report's findings suggest that efforts should also address the needs of middle-aged persons," CDC researchers wrote in the agency's weekly report in death and disease.
The CDC didn't look at why suicides might be up. Other reports have shown a link between bad economic times and suicides, although the American Association for Suicidology denies this. The National Bureau of Economic Research says the U.S. experienced a recession from 2007 to 2009.
But the association says unemployment and home foreclosures -- both of which soared during this time and both of which remain high -- do lead to more suicides.
"The findings in this report suggest it is important for suicide prevention strategies to address the types of stressors that middle-aged Americans might be facing and that can contribute to suicide risk," said Linda Degutis, director of CDC's National Center for Injury Prevention and Control.
The CDC had already noted a worrying trend for suicides. "Suicide deaths have surpassed deaths from motor vehicle crashes in recent years in the United States. In 2010 there were 33,687 deaths from motor vehicle crashes and 38,364 suicides," the CDC's Nimesh Patel and Scott Kegler wrote in their report.
They teased out the data by age and sex and found a clear trend for people who usually are at the height of career and family responsibilities -- those aged 35 to 64. "Annual suicide rates for this age group increased 28 percent over this period (from 13.7 suicides per 100,000 people in 1999 to 17.6 per 100,000 in 2010), with particularly high increases among non-Hispanic whites and American Indians and /Alaska Natives," they wrote.
My guess is economic stress.
The race demographics make me wonder if this is related to the guns-suicide problem.
This is what happens when you reach a certain age and realize this really is as good as it gets.
There's always a spike in suicides when there's a recession, and it predominantly affects people whose self-image is of being providers.
Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on May 03, 2013, 12:24:34 AM
There's always a spike in suicides when there's a recession, and it predominantly affects people whose self-image is of being providers.
Providers or people who think they're too big to fail or have mastered the game somehow.
It happens a lot when people get to the point of thinking that they have let everyone down, and there's no reason for them to live.
Quote from: Queen Gogira Pennyworth, BSW on May 02, 2013, 11:53:55 PM
The race demographics make me wonder if this is related to the guns-suicide problem.
The Japanese people would like to have a word with you concerning firearms and suicide...
Quote from: Von Zwietracht on May 03, 2013, 12:59:55 AM
Quote from: Queen Gogira Pennyworth, BSW on May 02, 2013, 11:53:55 PM
The race demographics make me wonder if this is related to the guns-suicide problem.
The Japanese people would like to have a word with you concerning firearms and suicide...
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/means-matter/risk/
http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2013/01/20/the-gun-toll-ignoring-suicide/xeWBHDHEvvagfkRlU3CfZJ/story.html
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp0805923
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerkay/2013/01/22/who-knew-the-leading-cause-of-gun-death-is-suicide/
This is a thing. If you don't have time to read all the material there it boils down to: most suicides are impulsive acts, having easy access to a highly lethal suicide method increases the risk that the individual will succumb to impulse. Knowing if gun ownership was on the rise in the affected demographics would help determine if that may have been a contributing factor. I agree with Nigel, however, that the economic downturn is most likely the major cause, it would just be interesting to know if this is another part of it.
Quote from: Queen Gogira Pennyworth, BSW on May 03, 2013, 01:06:03 AM
Quote from: Von Zwietracht on May 03, 2013, 12:59:55 AM
Quote from: Queen Gogira Pennyworth, BSW on May 02, 2013, 11:53:55 PM
The race demographics make me wonder if this is related to the guns-suicide problem.
The Japanese people would like to have a word with you concerning firearms and suicide...
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/means-matter/risk/
http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2013/01/20/the-gun-toll-ignoring-suicide/xeWBHDHEvvagfkRlU3CfZJ/story.html
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp0805923
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerkay/2013/01/22/who-knew-the-leading-cause-of-gun-death-is-suicide/
This is a thing. If you don't have time to read all the material there it boils down to: most suicides are impulsive acts, having easy access to a highly lethal suicide method increases the risk that the individual will succumb to impulse. Knowing if gun ownership was on the rise in the affected demographics would help determine if that may have been a contributing factor. I agree with Nigel, however, that the economic downturn is most likely the major cause, it would just be interesting to know if this is another part of it.
In attempting to find citations for a counter-argument, I actually ended up agreeing with you somewhat.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2597102/
http://www.jad-journal.com/article/S0165-0327(07)00294-7/abstract
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15549343
http://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2009/06/sci-brief.aspx
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3130348/
http://www.psychotherapybrownbag.com/psychotherapy_brown_bag_a/2010/01/suicidal-behavior-is-not-a-spur-of-the-moment-action.html
These seem to dispel the impulsivity factor, but over all boil suicide down to: FEELS USELESS - HAS MEANS. Naturally, "feels useless" (i.e. the economic downturn) precedes the "has means" in terms of importance, but I can now safely agree with you to an extent.
Sorry, I chimp out whenever anyone makes implications against firearms -- normally when I see such things it turns into a "hey guys, all aboard the let's ban guns wagon" and it just makes me rage a bit. Guess I'm apologising for jumping to conclusions...
My initial concerns were regarding the methodology for registering the suicide itself, because i think there's countries and/or localities where deaths aren't throughly investigated and the reason of death is simply marked as "unknown" or chalk it up to "natural causes".
But since there are statistical precedents, such as the big depression and such that show similar results, then there might be a correlation. I mean, in such a grand scale with such an important factor taking place, then one can overcome the usual constraint of "suicide is multi-causal and one cannot easily infer the reasons".
Quote from: Von Zwietracht on May 03, 2013, 01:29:00 AM
Quote from: Queen Gogira Pennyworth, BSW on May 03, 2013, 01:06:03 AM
Quote from: Von Zwietracht on May 03, 2013, 12:59:55 AM
Quote from: Queen Gogira Pennyworth, BSW on May 02, 2013, 11:53:55 PM
The race demographics make me wonder if this is related to the guns-suicide problem.
The Japanese people would like to have a word with you concerning firearms and suicide...
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/means-matter/risk/
http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2013/01/20/the-gun-toll-ignoring-suicide/xeWBHDHEvvagfkRlU3CfZJ/story.html
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp0805923
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerkay/2013/01/22/who-knew-the-leading-cause-of-gun-death-is-suicide/
This is a thing. If you don't have time to read all the material there it boils down to: most suicides are impulsive acts, having easy access to a highly lethal suicide method increases the risk that the individual will succumb to impulse. Knowing if gun ownership was on the rise in the affected demographics would help determine if that may have been a contributing factor. I agree with Nigel, however, that the economic downturn is most likely the major cause, it would just be interesting to know if this is another part of it.
In attempting to find citations for a counter-argument, I actually ended up agreeing with you somewhat.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2597102/
http://www.jad-journal.com/article/S0165-0327(07)00294-7/abstract
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15549343
http://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2009/06/sci-brief.aspx
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3130348/
http://www.psychotherapybrownbag.com/psychotherapy_brown_bag_a/2010/01/suicidal-behavior-is-not-a-spur-of-the-moment-action.html
These seem to dispel the impulsivity factor, but over all boil suicide down to: FEELS USELESS - HAS MEANS. Naturally, "feels useless" (i.e. the economic downturn) precedes the "has means" in terms of importance, but I can now safely agree with you to an extent.
Sorry, I chimp out whenever anyone makes implications against firearms -- normally when I see such things it turns into a "hey guys, all aboard the let's ban guns wagon" and it just makes me rage a bit. Guess I'm apologising for jumping to conclusions...
No worries, we all kneejerk from time to time. Thanks for taking the time to look into it.
Suicides amongst veterans undoubtedly is a big contributor.
Now, the populations affected are Non-Hispanic, American-Indian and Alaskan which puts in question other factors:
*Non-white Non-hispanic white: having certain privileges and losing them.
*American-Indian: i've heard this population has a tendency towards depression and alcoholism due to the historical traumas they have gone thru, so add another negative factor and they might not be as resilient as other populations.
*Alaskan: im sure the cold icy wasteland with moose doesnt help with the mood overall; it would also be of interest to see how socially isolated was this population.
Edit: crossout
non-Hispanic whites, not non-white
Stupid, off topic question...
What's the difference between a Latino/a, Hispanic white, and a Hispanic black? Is there a particular ethnic component at work, or is it more or less a cultural-linguistic distinction? What makes Hispanic white different from white and what makes Hispanic black different than black? Does the distinction go away after a generation or two of being in the United States? Like, say for example, my last name is Hernandez, but the last time I had an ancestor from South America was 80 years ago, what does that make me? Does it remain the same if my cultural background remains Latin American, or does it go away through Americanization? Just curious, because I'm not exactly clear on it. It's an odd and very specific distinction. Can thread split if appropriate, or pop it into the Hyphenated American thread.
Quote from: Queef Erisson on May 03, 2013, 04:58:29 AM
Stupid, off topic question...
What's the difference between a Latino/a, Hispanic white, and a Hispanic black? Is there a particular ethnic component at work, or is it more or less a cultural-linguistic distinction? What makes Hispanic white different from white and what makes Hispanic black different than black? Does the distinction go away after a generation or two of being in the United States? Like, say for example, my last name is Hernandez, but the last time I had an ancestor from South America was 80 years ago, what does that make me? Does it remain the same if my cultural background remains Latin American, or does it go away through Americanization? Just curious, because I'm not exactly clear on it. It's an odd and very specific distinction. Can thread split if appropriate, or pop it into the Hyphenated American thread.
Hispanic is an ethnicity, and Hispanics are people of Latin cultural descent, and various races. Lots of Hispanic families have lived in the United States (or areas that are now the United States) for many generations. It has nothing to do with Americanization. Either you identify as Hispanic, or you don't.
Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on May 03, 2013, 05:48:06 AM
Quote from: Queef Erisson on May 03, 2013, 04:58:29 AM
Stupid, off topic question...
What's the difference between a Latino/a, Hispanic white, and a Hispanic black? Is there a particular ethnic component at work, or is it more or less a cultural-linguistic distinction? What makes Hispanic white different from white and what makes Hispanic black different than black? Does the distinction go away after a generation or two of being in the United States? Like, say for example, my last name is Hernandez, but the last time I had an ancestor from South America was 80 years ago, what does that make me? Does it remain the same if my cultural background remains Latin American, or does it go away through Americanization? Just curious, because I'm not exactly clear on it. It's an odd and very specific distinction. Can thread split if appropriate, or pop it into the Hyphenated American thread.
Hispanic is an ethnicity, and Hispanics are people of Latin cultural descent, and various races. Lots of Hispanic families have lived in the United States (or areas that are now the United States) for many generations. It has nothing to do with Americanization. Either you identify as Hispanic, or you don't.
Cool, thanks, Nigel
It was a little oversimplified, but I think I covered the fundamentals. In a sense, it's what "Irish" and "Italian" and "German", among others, should be in America: distilled into a cultural derivative.
I mean, in a lot of ways I think that Americans of Polish descent would be better served by being recognized as "Polandic" by ethnicity, regardless of other descent. Know what I mean? Or all the mixed-race Germans, who still identify as culturally/ethnically Germanic even though they are genetically quite diverse. Culture is not genetically dependent, thank goodness. Maybe at some point modern governments will figure out what ancient cultures understood intuitively.
QuoteThe CDC had already noted a worrying trend for suicides. "Suicide deaths have surpassed deaths from motor vehicle crashes in recent years in the United States. In 2010 there were 33,687 deaths from motor vehicle crashes and 38,364 suicides," the CDC's Nimesh Patel and Scott Kegler wrote in their report
Question - How is the death rate from Motor vehicles worked out? This seems incredibly low. Are they talking about deaths on impact/while still in the car? I'd guess that this number is actually much higher but the cause of death is recorded as something else (Blood loss/ cardiac/ shock etc) by virtue of being in the hospital.
Just seems like very strange numbers. I thought cars were still way ahead of most things in terms of how monkeys kill themselves and each other.
My understanding is that deaths from X includes "X happened, went to the hospital, died of thing that was a direct result of X." Otherwise most gun deaths would be filed under organ failure / blood loss.
The really worrying thing about the death from cars statistic vs. suicide is... how may incidents of "lost control of the vehicle" are actually "pointed car at solid object and held down the gas"? Cars are the most dangerous implement most people handle on any given day. We think of car accidents as acts of God, because everyone is a better driver than average, right? Lethal care accidents happen to people all the time, so there wouldn't be much postmortem stigma.
Or maybe not, modern cars are pretty good at handling front-end collisions, probably better than most people realize (might be human interest bias, but in anecdotes when dude A crashes his car into car B, the people in car B suffer worse injuries than A.) If attempting suicide by car were really a trend, there'd be a spike in people stupidly hitting trees on roads not previously hazardous.
Thoughts that aren't random worrying, but still not actually researched either:
The same economic pressures that push up suicides should also push down car deaths. Higher gas prices (they spiked around 200Xish? But still higher in 2010 than '99) means people cut down on driving & travel, high unemployment means fewer people are commuting to work. (Not sure what scarcity of work + foreclosure crisis does to average commute distances - that'd be something to look up.)
I remember when the SUV fad vs. gas consumption argument was at it's highest, people made arguments both ways about SUV safety. (Built like a tank! Rolls over! Built like a tank! Rolls over!) Did the jury eventually come in on that one way or another? Not sure how SUV ownership in 2010 compares to 1999, might not be that different.
Either way, advances in tech should make cars & roads safer every year; it's amazing how much science goes into making cars crumple so you don't, and getting smarter about how traffic works (the challenges in predicting traffic jams are mathematically very similar to the problems in predicting the weather, which we're worse at than anyone likes to admit at) means that every time they expand a road rearrange highway exits that stretch should be safer than before.
Quote from: Golden Applesauce on May 04, 2013, 07:33:39 AM
Thoughts that aren't random worrying, but still not actually researched either:
The same economic pressures that push up suicides should also push down car deaths. Higher gas prices (they spiked around 200Xish? But still higher in 2010 than '99) means people cut down on driving & travel, high unemployment means fewer people are commuting to work. (Not sure what scarcity of work + foreclosure crisis does to average commute distances - that'd be something to look up.)
I remember when the SUV fad vs. gas consumption argument was at it's highest, people made arguments both ways about SUV safety. (Built like a tank! Rolls over! Built like a tank! Rolls over!) Did the jury eventually come in on that one way or another? Not sure how SUV ownership in 2010 compares to 1999, might not be that different.
Either way, advances in tech should make cars & roads safer every year; it's amazing how much science goes into making cars crumple so you don't, and getting smarter about how traffic works (the challenges in predicting traffic jams are mathematically very similar to the problems in predicting the weather, which we're worse at than anyone likes to admit at) means that every time they expand a road rearrange highway exits that stretch should be safer than before.
The SUVs in 99 were highly prone to rolling and catching on fire. If I'm not mistaken, the modern designs are much better about both problems. The "built like a tank" was actually a separate problem, where accidents that would normally be nothing became serious for the other party, since the SUV bumpers don't line up with the bumpers of other cars. What should have been a fender-bender turns into serious damage for the smaller car.
Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on May 03, 2013, 05:48:06 AM
Quote from: Queef Erisson on May 03, 2013, 04:58:29 AM
Stupid, off topic question...
What's the difference between a Latino/a, Hispanic white, and a Hispanic black? Is there a particular ethnic component at work, or is it more or less a cultural-linguistic distinction? What makes Hispanic white different from white and what makes Hispanic black different than black? Does the distinction go away after a generation or two of being in the United States? Like, say for example, my last name is Hernandez, but the last time I had an ancestor from South America was 80 years ago, what does that make me? Does it remain the same if my cultural background remains Latin American, or does it go away through Americanization? Just curious, because I'm not exactly clear on it. It's an odd and very specific distinction. Can thread split if appropriate, or pop it into the Hyphenated American thread.
Hispanic is an ethnicity, and Hispanics are people of Latin cultural descent, and various races. Lots of Hispanic families have lived in the United States (or areas that are now the United States) for many generations. It has nothing to do with Americanization. Either you identify as Hispanic, or you don't.
I've heard people living in Canada refer to French people as Latins, what people mean by it seems to change from place to place according to who's around. And I think Nixon coined the term "Hispanic".
Once in awhile I see people wearing shirts with Aztec art and "I am not Hispanic, I am not Latino, etc...I am a Mexican".
Quote from: stelz on May 04, 2013, 05:07:38 PM
I've heard people living in Canada refer to French people as Latins, what people mean by it seems to change from place to place according to who's around. And I think Nixon coined the term "Hispanic".
Once in awhile I see people wearing shirts with Aztec art and "I am not Hispanic, I am not Latino, etc...I am a Mexican".
Which is sort of like saying, "I'm not <insert race>, I'm an American". It's factually inaccurate, but rather an expression of where one's loyalties are.
Also, from Wikipedia:
QuoteThe term Hispanic is derived from Hispanicus (which derived from Hispania), Hispania may in turn derive from Latin Hispanicus, or from Greek Ισπανία Hispania and Ισπανός Hispanos, probably from Celtiberian[9] or from Basque Ezpanna.[10] In English the word is attested from the 16th century (and in late 19th century in American English).[11]
So, yes, Richard Nixon.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on May 06, 2013, 08:27:42 PM
Also, from Wikipedia:
QuoteThe term Hispanic is derived from Hispanicus (which derived from Hispania), Hispania may in turn derive from Latin Hispanicus, or from Greek Ισπανία Hispania and Ισπανός Hispanos, probably from Celtiberian[9] or from Basque Ezpanna.[10] In English the word is attested from the 16th century (and in late 19th century in American English).[11]
So, yes, Richard Nixon.
He's forever, isn't he? "Nixon ye have with ye always". :lulz:
Should've double-checked. :oops:
Didn't the government forms change under Nixon, though? They added "Hispanic", "White, not Hispanic", etc."?