Major demographic, social and economic factors associated to suicide rates in Latvia 1980–98

Rancāns, Elmārs; Renberg, Ellinor Salander; Jacobsson, Lars

doi:10.1034/j.1600-0447.2001.00007.x

Cited by 50 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 29 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…35, p = .002), male (β = .31, p = .006), and female (β = .33, p = .001) suicide rates. 5 Suicide rates were also significantly higher in regions with a larger rural population, which is consistent with prior research both in the West and in former Soviet nations (Rancans, Renberg and Jacobsson 2001). None of the indicators of the strength of social institutions appeared to be related to the spatial distribution of Russian suicide rates, which may be partially explained by the findings of Kowalski, Faupel and Starr (1987), who found that measures of social structure may only be helpful in explaining suicide rates in metropolitan areas, not in rural settings.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 80%

Heavy Drinking and Suicide in Russia

Pridemore

2006

Social Forces

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Russian levels of alcohol consumption and suicide are among the highest in the world. While observers have long suspected an association between the two, they were unable to investigate this hypothesis until recently due to past Soviet secrecy and thus a lack of data. This study took advantage of the newly available data during the post-Soviet era to examine the cross-sectional association between heavy drinking and suicide mortality in Russia. Aggregate mortality data for the Russian regions (n = 78) for the year 2000 were used to measure heavy drinking and suicide rates. Government data were used to control for the regional economic situation and strength of social institutions. Ordinary Least Squares regression was employed to estimate the effect of a proxy for heavy drinking on overall and sex-specific age-adjusted suicide rates. The results showed a positive and significant association between the two, and the association held for overall, male and female rates. These results not only confirmed an association between heavy drinking and suicide in Russia, but when compared to findings from previous studies of other countries they led to the hypothesis that a nation's beverage preference may be as important as its wet/dry drinking culture in its sensitivity of suicide rates to alcohol consumption.Rates of alcohol consumption and suicide in Russia were high before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, rose sharply during the early 1990s, and are currently among the highest in the world. Annual alcohol consumption in Russia is estimated to be nearly 15 liters per person (Nemtsov 2000, Treml 1997) compared to average rates of about 10 and 7 liters per person in the European Union and the United States, respectively (World Advertising Research Center 2002). The age-standardized suicide rate in Russia in 2000 of about 38 per 100,000 persons was second only to Lithuania and was two to three times higher than the European Union average and in the United States. Violent death, including suicide, was also one of the leading causes of the Russian mortality crisis during the 1990s, especially for males (Notzon et al. 1998, Shkolnikov and. Rossow (1996) and Skog (1993) noted that alcohol has been largely ignored in studies of suicide rates. While this has begun to change, most studies of alcohol and suicide are still at the individual level, and most aggregate-level studies have been time-series analyses of Western (usually European) nations. Although time-series designs are powerful, Norström and Skog (2001) and Rossow (1995) pointed out that analyses of rates aggregated to the national level may conceal important spatial variation within a country. Further, while the empirical literature is providing increasing evidence of an ecological association between alcohol and suicide rates, most explanations have been reductionist in nature (i.e., employing aggregate data but resorting to individual-level explanations). However, some countries with high levels of drinking do not exhibit high suicide rates, suggestin...

show abstract

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 80%

Heavy Drinking and Suicide in Russia

Pridemore

2006

Social Forces

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…On the basis of Latvian data from 1980 to 1998 data, rising suicide rates in Latvia were paralleled by declining GDP and increasing unemployment until 1993. 12 This association disappeared between 1993 and 1998. A German study (1981 to 1989) found that increasing suicide rates correlated with increasing unemployment and decreasing real income.…”

mentioning

confidence: 91%

Socioeconomic Factors and Suicide

Barth

Sögner

Gnambs

et al. 2011

Journal of Occupational &Amp; Environmental Medicine

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The increase in suicide mortality from the mid-1960s to 1984 has been linked to psycho-social factors such as the suppression of individuality and individual thought (Värnik & Wasserman, 1992) as well as to the economic stagnation of the Brezhnev era (Gilinskii & Rumyantseva, 2004). The sharp decrease that occurred from 1984 has been widely associated with the large reduction in alcohol consumption that occurred during Gorbachev's antialcohol campaign (Shkolnikov & Nemtsov, 1997;Nemtsov, 2003), possibly in conjunction with the processes of glasnost and perestroika and the popular optimism created by the political thaw at that time (Gilinskii & Rumyantseva, 2004;Rancans, Salander Renberg, & Jacobsson, 2001;Wasserman & Värnik, 1998a). In contrast, the dramatic increase in suicide mortality following the break-up of the Soviet Union has been attributed to rapid social change producing ''anomic'' societal effects (Mäkinen, 2000;Pridemore, Chamlin, & Cochran, 2007), in conjunction with deteriorating macroeconomic conditions (Brainerd, 2001), increased levels of stress (Mäkinen, 2000), and growing alcohol consumption (Nemtsov, 2003).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

The Historical Development of Suicide Mortality in Russia, 1870–2007

Jukkala

Mäkinen

Stickley

2014

Archives of Suicide Research

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Russia has one of the highest suicide mortality rates in the world. This study investigates the development of Russian suicide mortality over a longer time period in order to provide a context within which the contemporary high level might be better understood. Annual sex- and age-specific suicide-mortality data for Russia for the period 1870-2007 were studied, where available. Russian suicide mortality increased 11-fold over the period. Trends in male and female suicide developed similarly, although male suicide rates were consistently much higher. From the 1990s suicide has increased in a relative sense among the young (15-34), while the high suicide mortality among middle-aged males has reduced. Changes in Russian suicide mortality over the study period may be attributable to modernization processes.

show abstract

Major demographic, social and economic factors associated to suicide rates in Latvia 1980–98

Abstract: Demographic and socioeconomic factors could not explain sufficiently the rapid changes in suicide rates in Latvia during the years 1980-98; psychological factors also have to be considered.

Cited by 50 publications

References 29 publications

Heavy Drinking and Suicide in Russia

Heavy Drinking and Suicide in Russia

Socioeconomic Factors and Suicide

The Historical Development of Suicide Mortality in Russia, 1870–2007

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

Major demographic, social and economic factors associated to suicide rates in Latvia 1980–98

Abstract: Demographic and socioeconomic factors could not explain sufficiently the rapid changes in suicide rates in Latvia during the years 1980-98; psychological factors also have to be considered.

Cited by 50 publications

References 29 publications

Heavy Drinking and Suicide in Russia

Heavy Drinking and Suicide in Russia

Socioeconomic Factors and Suicide

The Historical Development of Suicide Mortality in Russia, 1870–2007

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

Major demographic, social and economic factors associated to suicide rates in Latvia 1980–98