The city where an individual lives can influence the risk of dying by suicide, according to a new study from sociologists at Rice University and the University of Colorado at Boulder.
"Suicide in the City: Do Characteristics of Place Really Influence Risk?" appears in the latest edition of Social Science Quarterly. The study found that adults living in cities with more socio-economic disadvantages 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.
The findings support classic sociological arguments that the risk of suicide is indeed influenced by the social climate and cannot simply be explained by the sum of individual characteristics, the researchers said.
"Many people see suicide as an inherently individual act," said Justin Denney, an assistant professor of sociology at Rice and director of the Urban Health Program, part of Rice's Kinder Institute for Urban Research. "However, our research suggests that it is an act that can be heavily influenced by broader socio-economic and family factors."
In part one of the two-part study, the results showed that respondents living in cities with a higher percentage of family households demonstrated a lower risk of suicide than did respondents in cities where more residents lived alone or with unrelated friends.
[For more of this story go to http://www.sciencedaily.com/re.../06/150615112659.htm]
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