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Has become more common in some communities though... Suicides among Black people doubled during COVID-19 lockdowns, while suicides in white individuals were

Has become more common in some communities though... Suicides among Black people doubled during COVID-19 lockdowns, while suicides in white individuals were cut in half during the same period. https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2020-12-17/pandemic-tied-to-higher-suicide-rate-in-blacks-lowered-rate-in-whites-study https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2020-12-17/...

LudwigNagasena 5y ago
Is race really a more important factor than wealth? I would like to see dynamics across other demographics.
- intergalplan 5y ago
  It's super common for the main problem to be "urban living + poor" in these cases (sometimes, just "poor"). If you target interventions on those criteria, rather than color of skin, you'll do a good job of addressing the issue, because skin color wasn't the (primary) acute cause of the problem. The part where it's a race issue is farther up the causality chain, where "urban living + poor" becomes correlated with "black" in the first place. I suspect that the study took place in Maryland is why the effect is so pronounced. I wouldn't be a bit surprised to find that their race-demographics are even more skewed in terms of geographic distribution and SES than is typical nationwide.
  - jeffbee 5y ago
    Isn't suicide anti-correlated with urban living? In California urban counties like San Francisco, Alameda, and Los Angeles are clustered around 7 suicides per 100k, while rural counties like Shasta, Siskiyou, and Lake are 25-30.
    - sokoloff 5y ago
      The median urban San Francisco resident has a significantly higher income than the median Baltimore, MD resident, so if the socioeconomic link to suicide/attempt rate is strong, I could see this being a factor that would significantly confound the urban/suburban/rural split.
    - whimsicalism 5y ago
      Those are not at all good model urban cities.. very different demographic profiles than the rest of the country
      - jeffbee 5y ago
        How can fifteen million people be terribly unrepresentative?
        whimsicalism 5y ago
        The quantity of people is irrelevant, if I had gone through the US and only picked 30 million men, the results would be obviously non-generalizable.
        jeffbee 5y ago
        I agree, but I don't see a selection bias in something as large and diverse in all dimensions as Los Angeles County. It's bigger than Honduras. Anyway I just don't see the data from which the original conclusion is made. According to CDC WISQARS the suicide rate in Baltimore MD was 9 per 100k, whereas in nearby rural Cecil County MD it was 24 per 100k.
- cyberlurker 5y ago
  Maybe this is your point, but race and wealth seem to have a correlation and I think it’s reasonable to say systemic racism impacts outcomes (wealth). I would also like to see this broken down by income.
  - LudwigNagasena 5y ago
    They have a correlation and that's why it makes no sense to race-bait with statistics like this that imply that the difference comes solely from race.
    - whimsicalism 5y ago
      I don't think this is race-baiting. There is a huge economic disparity between the average black person and the average white person. That means that race is intertwined with almost every class issue in America.
      - LudwigNagasena 5y ago
        This means that the issues of economic disparity get shadowed by the pseudo-issues of race.
- bumby 5y ago
  More important? I don't know. But there are people who think there are theories about race being somewhat causal. One is the "nobody left to blame" theory which basically says people in the dominant culture who aren't happy don't have an easy group to blame. The theory goes, they recognize they should have the elements of happiness since they aren't being oppressed, which can lead to more hopelessness if they are depressed. "And Veralyn Williams reports on places where there’s a paucity of suicides: African-American communities. As it happens, blacks are only about half as likely to kill themselves as whites. (When it comes to murder, meanwhile, blacks are nearly six times more likely than whites to die.) There are just three places in the U.S. where the overall homicide rate is higher than the suicide rate: Louisiana, Maryland and the District of Columbia. It’s not a coincidence that these are also places with large African-American populations. Donna Barnes, who founded the National Organization for People of Color Against Suicide, tries to explain why there’s such a huge black-white suicide gap: BARNES: Okay, it’s very easy when you are stressed and you don’t want to live anymore and put yourself in harm’s way and somebody will take you out. We get angry. We get irritable. We do things, we engage in reckless behavior more so than say, the dominant culture. And those are signs of depression. And many times we will externalize our frustration meaning that we’re going to take it out on other people. And then you might have more folks maybe from the dominant culture who internalize their frustration and take it out on themselves. We have been socialized to believe that a lot of our disadvantages are based on our surroundings — racism, discrimination and all of that. So it’s really easy, for us, when we become frustrated and we look at what’s going on around us, to take it out on the environment and other people rather than ourselves." https://freakonomics.com/podcast/new-freakonomics-radio-podcast-the-suicide-paradox/ https://freakonomics.com/podcast/new-freakonomics-radio-podc...
- x86_64Ubuntu 5y ago
  Race in the US is always a more important factor than wealth. When controlling for wealth, outcomes for Black Americans routinely underperform those of whites.
  - LudwigNagasena 5y ago
    I am sorry, but I can’t believe that a black billionaire has it worse than a white homeless person. How can you say that race is always more important than wealth? This is simply ridiculous.
    - x86_64Ubuntu 5y ago
      There are only 7 black billionaires in the US. There is a reason you chose the experience of 7 people out of 40MM.
whimsicalism 5y ago
in Maryland* We have to be really cautious about multiple comparison bias when analyzing results like these.
jwond 5y ago
It should be noted that the study the article is covering only looked at people in Maryland, so the findings don't necessarily apply to the rest of the country. I also think it is interesting that the article doesn't mention what the actual suicide rates are/were. Prior to the pandemic white suicide rates were more than twice that of black suicide rates. In 2017 suicide rates were: - White Men: 28.2 per 100,000 - Black Men: 11.4 per 100,000 - White Women: 8 per 100,000 - Black Women: 3 per 100,000 https://www.usnews.com/news/healthiest-communities/articles/2019-06-20/suicide-by-race-age-in-the-us https://www.usnews.com/news/healthiest-communities/articles/...
- fighterpilot 5y ago
  This is pretty important. Could easily be a spurious result. If we have 100 cities to cherry pick from, then studies will get published and headlines published about the strange outliers

LudwigNagasena 5y ago

Is race really a more important factor than wealth? I would like to see dynamics across other demographics.

intergalplan 5y ago
It's super common for the main problem to be "urban living + poor" in these cases (sometimes, just "poor"). If you target interventions on those criteria, rather than color of skin, you'll do a good job of addressing the issue, because skin color wasn't the (primary) acute cause of the problem. The part where it's a race issue is farther up the causality chain, where "urban living + poor" becomes correlated with "black" in the first place. I suspect that the study took place in Maryland is why the effect is so pronounced. I wouldn't be a bit surprised to find that their race-demographics are even more skewed in terms of geographic distribution and SES than is typical nationwide.
- jeffbee 5y ago
  Isn't suicide anti-correlated with urban living? In California urban counties like San Francisco, Alameda, and Los Angeles are clustered around 7 suicides per 100k, while rural counties like Shasta, Siskiyou, and Lake are 25-30.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    The median urban San Francisco resident has a significantly higher income than the median Baltimore, MD resident, so if the socioeconomic link to suicide/attempt rate is strong, I could see this being a factor that would significantly confound the urban/suburban/rural split.
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    Those are not at all good model urban cities.. very different demographic profiles than the rest of the country
    - jeffbee 5y ago
      How can fifteen million people be terribly unrepresentative?
      - whimsicalism 5y ago
        The quantity of people is irrelevant, if I had gone through the US and only picked 30 million men, the results would be obviously non-generalizable.
        jeffbee 5y ago
        I agree, but I don't see a selection bias in something as large and diverse in all dimensions as Los Angeles County. It's bigger than Honduras. Anyway I just don't see the data from which the original conclusion is made. According to CDC WISQARS the suicide rate in Baltimore MD was 9 per 100k, whereas in nearby rural Cecil County MD it was 24 per 100k.
cyberlurker 5y ago
Maybe this is your point, but race and wealth seem to have a correlation and I think it’s reasonable to say systemic racism impacts outcomes (wealth). I would also like to see this broken down by income.
- LudwigNagasena 5y ago
  They have a correlation and that's why it makes no sense to race-bait with statistics like this that imply that the difference comes solely from race.
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    I don't think this is race-baiting. There is a huge economic disparity between the average black person and the average white person. That means that race is intertwined with almost every class issue in America.
    - LudwigNagasena 5y ago
      This means that the issues of economic disparity get shadowed by the pseudo-issues of race.
bumby 5y ago
More important? I don't know. But there are people who think there are theories about race being somewhat causal. One is the "nobody left to blame" theory which basically says people in the dominant culture who aren't happy don't have an easy group to blame. The theory goes, they recognize they should have the elements of happiness since they aren't being oppressed, which can lead to more hopelessness if they are depressed. "And Veralyn Williams reports on places where there’s a paucity of suicides: African-American communities. As it happens, blacks are only about half as likely to kill themselves as whites. (When it comes to murder, meanwhile, blacks are nearly six times more likely than whites to die.) There are just three places in the U.S. where the overall homicide rate is higher than the suicide rate: Louisiana, Maryland and the District of Columbia. It’s not a coincidence that these are also places with large African-American populations. Donna Barnes, who founded the National Organization for People of Color Against Suicide, tries to explain why there’s such a huge black-white suicide gap: BARNES: Okay, it’s very easy when you are stressed and you don’t want to live anymore and put yourself in harm’s way and somebody will take you out. We get angry. We get irritable. We do things, we engage in reckless behavior more so than say, the dominant culture. And those are signs of depression. And many times we will externalize our frustration meaning that we’re going to take it out on other people. And then you might have more folks maybe from the dominant culture who internalize their frustration and take it out on themselves. We have been socialized to believe that a lot of our disadvantages are based on our surroundings — racism, discrimination and all of that. So it’s really easy, for us, when we become frustrated and we look at what’s going on around us, to take it out on the environment and other people rather than ourselves." https://freakonomics.com/podcast/new-freakonomics-radio-podcast-the-suicide-paradox/ https://freakonomics.com/podcast/new-freakonomics-radio-podc...
x86_64Ubuntu 5y ago
Race in the US is always a more important factor than wealth. When controlling for wealth, outcomes for Black Americans routinely underperform those of whites.
- LudwigNagasena 5y ago
  I am sorry, but I can’t believe that a black billionaire has it worse than a white homeless person. How can you say that race is always more important than wealth? This is simply ridiculous.
  - x86_64Ubuntu 5y ago
    There are only 7 black billionaires in the US. There is a reason you chose the experience of 7 people out of 40MM.

whimsicalism 5y ago

in Maryland* We have to be really cautious about multiple comparison bias when analyzing results like these.

jwond 5y ago

It should be noted that the study the article is covering only looked at people in Maryland, so the findings don't necessarily apply to the rest of the country. I also think it is interesting that the article doesn't mention what the actual suicide rates are/were. Prior to the pandemic white suicide rates were more than twice that of black suicide rates. In 2017 suicide rates were: - White Men: 28.2 per 100,000 - Black Men: 11.4 per 100,000 - White Women: 8 per 100,000 - Black Women: 3 per 100,000 https://www.usnews.com/news/healthiest-communities/articles/2019-06-20/suicide-by-race-age-in-the-us https://www.usnews.com/news/healthiest-communities/articles/...

fighterpilot 5y ago
This is pretty important. Could easily be a spurious result. If we have 100 cities to cherry pick from, then studies will get published and headlines published about the strange outliers