IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v72y2011i6p884-889.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do local landmark bridges increase the suicide rate? An alternative test of the likely effect of means restriction at suicide-jumping sites

Author

Listed:
  • Glasgow, Garrett

Abstract

A number of recent studies have examined the effect of installing physical barriers or otherwise restricting access to public sites that are frequently used for suicides by jumping. While these studies demonstrate that barriers lead to a reduction in the number of suicides by jumping at the site where they are installed, thus far no study has found a statistically significant reduction in the local suicide rate attributable to a barrier. All previous studies are case studies of particular sites, and thus have limited statistical power and ability to control for confounding factors, which may obscure the true relationship between barriers and the suicide rate. This study addresses these concerns by examining the relationship between large, well-known bridges ("local landmark" bridges) of the type that are often used as suicide-jumping sites and the local suicide rate, an approach that yields many more cases for analysis. If barriers at suicide-jumping sites decrease the local suicide rate, then this implies that the presence of an unsecured suicide-jumping site will lead to a higher local suicide rate in comparison to areas without such a site. The relationship between suicides and local landmark bridges is examined across 3116 US counties or county equivalents with negative binomial regression models. I found that while exposure to local landmark bridges was associated with an increased number of suicides by jumping, no positive relationship between these bridges and the overall number of suicides was detected. It may be impossible to conclusively determine if barriers at suicide-jumping sites reduce the local suicide rate with currently available data. However, the method introduced in this paper offers the possibility that better data, or an improved understanding of which potential jumping sites attract suicidal individuals, may eventually allow researchers to determine if means restriction at suicide-jumping sites reduces total suicides.

Suggested Citation

  • Glasgow, Garrett, 2011. "Do local landmark bridges increase the suicide rate? An alternative test of the likely effect of means restriction at suicide-jumping sites," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(6), pages 884-889, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:72:y:2011:i:6:p:884-889
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(11)00038-4
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Singh, G.K. & Siahpush, M., 2002. "Increasing rural-urban gradients in US suicide mortality, 1970-1997," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 92(7), pages 1161-1167.
    2. Florentine, Julia Buus & Crane, Catherine, 2010. "Suicide prevention by limiting access to methods: A review of theory and practice," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(10), pages 1626-1632, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Philip M. Pendergast & Tim Wadsworth & Charis E. Kubrin, 2019. "Suicide in Happy Places: Is There Really a Paradox?," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 20(1), pages 81-99, January.
    2. Thompson, Laura K. & Sugg, Margaret M. & Runkle, Jennifer R., 2018. "Adolescents in crisis: A geographic exploration of help-seeking behavior using data from Crisis Text Line," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 215(C), pages 69-79.
    3. John Helliwell, 2007. "Well-Being and Social Capital: Does Suicide Pose a Puzzle?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 81(3), pages 455-496, May.
    4. Justin T. Denney & Tim Wadsworth & Richard G. Rogers & Fred C. Pampel, 2015. "Suicide in the City: Do Characteristics of Place Really Influence Risk?," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 96(2), pages 313-329, June.
    5. Wesley James & Jeralynn Cossman & Julia Wolf, 2018. "Persistence of death in the United States: The remarkably different mortality patterns between America’s Heartland and Dixieland," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 39(33), pages 897-910.
    6. Qijin Cheng & Shu-Sen Chang & Yingqi Guo & Paul S F Yip, 2015. "Information Accessibility of the Charcoal Burning Suicide Method in Mainland China," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(10), pages 1-15, October.
    7. Julie Phillips, 2013. "Factors Associated With Temporal and Spatial Patterns in Suicide Rates Across U.S. States, 1976–2000," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 50(2), pages 591-614, April.
    8. Zhai, Muxin & Kishan, Ruby P. & Showalter, Dean, 2022. "Social capital and suicidal behaviors: Evidence from the United States counties," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    9. Richard Volpe, 2014. "Supercenters, Unionized Labor, and Performance in Food Retail," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(2), pages 325-355, April.
    10. Rodríguez Andrés, Antonio & Hempstead, Katherine, 2011. "Gun control and suicide: The impact of state firearm regulations in the United States, 1995-2004," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 101(1), pages 95-103, June.
    11. Kim, Jinho, 2018. "Beyond the trigger: The mental health consequences of in-home firearm access among children of gun owners," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 203(C), pages 51-59.
    12. Qijin Cheng & Feng Chen & Paul S F Yip, 2017. "Media effects on suicide methods: A case study on Hong Kong 1998-2005," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(4), pages 1-12, April.
    13. Kim, Myoung-Hee & Jung-Choi, Kyunghee & Jun, Hee-Jin & Kawachi, Ichiro, 2010. "Socioeconomic inequalities in suicidal ideation, parasuicides, and completed suicides in South Korea," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(8), pages 1254-1261, April.
    14. Jinfeng Zhao & Shanthi Ameratunga & Arier Lee & Michael Browne & Daniel J. Exeter, 2019. "Developing a New Index of Rurality for Exploring Variations in Health Outcomes in Auckland and Northland," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 144(2), pages 955-980, July.
    15. Chau-kiu Cheung & Jerf Wai-keung Yeung, 2017. "Parental and Teachers’ Regard as Mediators of the Effect of Girls’ Delinquency on Hope," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 10(3), pages 839-858, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:72:y:2011:i:6:p:884-889. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.