4 ms·

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, rathe

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.

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.