Associations of Suicide Rates With Socioeconomic Status and Social Isolation: Findings From Longitudinal Register and Census Data

Abstract: Suicide represents a major challenge to public mental health. In order to provide empirical evidence for prevention strategies, we hypothesized current levels of low socioeconomic status (SES) and high social isolation (SI) to be linked to increased suicide rates in N = 390 administrative districts since SES and SI are associated with mental illness. Effects of SES on suicide rates were further expected to be especially pronounced in districts with individuals showing high SI levels as SI reduces the reception of social support and moderates the impact of low SES on poor mental health. We linked German Microcensus data to register data on all 149,033 German suicides between 1997 and 2010 and estimated Prentice and Sheppard’s model for aggregate data to test the hypotheses, accounting for spatial effect correlations. The findings reveal increases in district suicide rates by 1.20% (p < 0.035) for 1% increases of district unemployment, suicide rate decreases of -0.39% (p < 0.028) for

Object Details

• Location: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
• Extent: Online-Ressource
• Language: Englisch
• Notes: Veröffentlichungsversion ; begutachtet (peer reviewed) ; In: Frontiers in Psychiatry ; 10 (2020) 898 ; 1-9

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Soziale Probleme, Sozialdienste, Versicherungen

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (where): Mannheim
• (who): SSOAR, GESIS – Leibniz-Institut für Sozialwissenschaften e.V.
• (when): 2020
• Creator: Näher, Anatol-Fiete ; Rummel-Kluge, Christine ; Hegerl, Ulrich

Further information

• DOI: 10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00898
• URN: urn:nbn:de:101:1-2022091414031727556128
• Rights: Open Access; Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
• Last update: 25.03.2025, 1:51 PM CET