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There is nearly a 2x difference in rate between white and native americans vs blacks, asians and hispanics. I'm wondering if there is a good understanding of th

• DaniFong 7y ago
  That stood out to me as well, indeed the numbers vary a lot nationally and ethnically. How are you supposed to study it, though? Not exactly a good situation for an exit poll. Imaginably the government could be in a position to grant a gift, and help, to offer a moment of respite from whatever is causing the most distress -- that might help some people...
  • whatshisface 7y ago
    You could give the survey to random people, and when somebody dies, you go back and find their most recent survey. That's their exit poll.
    • DaniFong 7y ago
      yeah, that could work if it was wide scale enough. apparently google and facebook already have some kind of tech that estimates if people are vulnerable to suicidal ideation based on searches ("hey google, how do I kill myself painlessly?" gives the national suicide prevention hotline -- good)
• luckydata 7y ago
  Because if you're told you're supposed to "make it" since birth, and you don't, you feel like a piece of shit. Marginalized communities have been told the other story, every little thing is a win. Difference in expectations is huge, and source of all sort of bad things (like racial resentment etc...). Solution: make this country slightly less "dog eat dog" and you'll solve a LOT of social issues almost overnight.
  • selrumingo 7y ago
    It’s not just about expectations of yourself. It might even be more about others’ expectations of you. When society says your white privilege means you have no excuse for failure, that is a hard dead end.
    • bambataa 7y ago
      Does society say that? I've never come across a description of white privilege that didn't compare it to playing your life on easy mode. Sure, your life might be tough but it's less tough than it would be if you in the exact same situation and not white.
      • selrumingo 7y ago
        However you try to spin it, your point is that it is their own fault.
        • bambataa 7y ago
          Erm, no. Fault doesn't come into it.
  • rayiner 7y ago
    Is there evidence for this? An alternative explanation is that black and Hispanic people are more likely to be religious, and religious people have lower suicide rates in the United States. They are also more likely to have kids, which also is associated with lower suicide rates.
    • HarryHirsch 7y ago
      more likely to be religious That's not necessarily a contradiction, since churches double as social clubs and Christian charity means supporting your neighbour who is in trouble. So if you are active in a church you belong to a circle that is a little less dog-eat-dog. Same thing with immigrant communities.
• rayiner 7y ago
  I mean the data by race suggests it’s not economic, right? Black, Hispanic, and Asian people have half the suicide rate of non-Hispanic white people. Another anomaly: Hispanic people have the second highest life expectancies in the United States (after Asians), significantly higher than non-Hispanic whites, despite on average having lower incomes and health insurance coeverage.
  • pmoriarty 7y ago
    I'd like to see the correlations after things such as how many close family members and friends one has are taken in to account. I suspect that the larger and more cohesive one's support network is, the less likely you are to commit suicide, and that the more socially isolated one is, the poorer one is, and the sicker one is, the more likely one is to feel hopeless and see suicide as the only way out. Other important factors are things like how many recent traumatic events (such as relationship breakups, serious illness, bereavement, rape, witnessing or being a victim of violence, etc) one has suffered, recent alcohol and drug use/abuse, and then very hard to quantify things like how good one is at coping with such events. You can't really boil all this down to any one factor, and there's no one solution to any of these issues. But, yes, reducing misery (whether economic or social) should help.
  • MiroF 7y ago
    Most of the evidence suggests (unintuitively) that insurance coverage doesn't have much of an impact on health outcomes, but does have a large impact on economic outcomes. I say that as a supporter of M4A
  • DanBC 7y ago
    But Black people with financial problems have a higher rate than Black people without financial problems.
• satya71 7y ago
  Social connections are the biggest anti-dote to depression and suicide. I suspect Blacks, Asians, and Hispanics have stronger social bonds.
• spodek 7y ago
  If you're going to disaggregate, by sex is the major axis. If the gap reversed, it would likely become one of the greatest issues to solve, whatever it took.