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The Impact of Socioeconomic Factors on State Suicide Rates: A Methodological Note

Department of Economics and Finance, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071-3985, USA. mkunce{at}uwyo.edu

April L. Anderson

Department of Psychology, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071-3415, USA. Fax: 307 766 5090. aprila{at}uwyo.edu

This note examines the purported impact of conventional socioeconomic and social environment factors on annual, state-level suicide rates. Results from an inductive fixed-effects (covariance) analysis, of state-level time-series/cross-section data for the period 1985-95, do little to support Durkheim's social causes hypothesis that aggregate socioeconomic factors matter in explaining state suicide rates. A possible source of heterogeneity-aggregation bias is identified raising questions surrounding past inferences made in aggregate suicide research. The data and empirical method support a mounting sentiment of an abiding ecological fallacy in the suicide literature. Implications of this investigation call for a shift in research focus and method to a smaller unit of analysis (for example, individual-level, controlling for key social processes).

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