3 ms·
Suicide rates are up, which is perhaps the best measure of the quality of mental health care people are receiving. However, there are at least few plausible exp
by cjlars 10y ago
Suicide rates are up, which is perhaps the best measure of the quality of mental health care people are receiving. However, there are at least few plausible explanations not mentioned in the article:
1. We have an older population -- suicide rates increase with age. [1]
2. We have a less religious population -- Christians, Buddhists and Muslims all have lower suicide rates than Atheists. [1]
3. We have a lower worker participation rate -- Unemployment is associated with higher suicide rates. Although most of the decrease in work in the US is voluntary, there is still a plausible link. [2]
[1] https://www.journals.uio.no/index.php/suicidologi/article/download/2330/2193 https://www.journals.uio.no/index.php/suicidologi/article/do...
[2] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/psychological-medicine/article/div-classtitleunemployment-and-suicide-a-cohort-analysis-of-social-factors-predicting-suicide-in-the-us-national-longitudinal-mortality-studydiv/8F011545660CD98D542F48AC6B05E20F https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/psychological-medici...
- tptacek 10y ago4. It became much easier and more fashionable for people in middle America to acquire and use opiates and methamphetamine. 5. We've had a slow collapse in the markets for routine manual labor, which were the backbone of small/mid-market middle America, which drew people into the cities set up a vicious cycle of depopulation and market decline in middle America. Maybe some of the linked research decouples the suicide rate from these phenomenon, but I don't see enough meat in this article to make the case that psychiatric medication is the likeliest cause.