[PW] Re: ?suicide rate by city

[Thomas Arendall-Salvetti]

John,

Your question about suicide rates by US city is an interesting one.  I
can't give you such a table, but I may be able to point you towards some
sources that would help...

A quick search of PsycINFO reveals the following passage from a journal
article:

"Two studies have examined the association between suicide and gambling
availability by comparing the suicide rates in cities with legalized
casino gambling and those in which casino gambling is illegal. One study
(Phillips, Welty, & Smith, 1997) found Las Vegas to have the highest
rate of suicide among both visitors and residents compared with other
metropolitan centers. Atlantic City, New Jersey, and Reno, Nevada, also
exhibited high suicide rates. Furthermore, in Atlantic City, suicide
rates increased after the introduction of legalized casinos. Contrary to
these findings, a second study (McCleary, Chew, Merrill, & Napolitano,
2002) found only a modest impact of the presence of casinos on resident
suicide rate and no significant relationship between suicide and
gambling when suicide rates were analyzed before and after the
introduction of casinos. Thus, the specific impact of gambling
opportunities on suicide risk is unclear."

The original article is:

Ledgerwood, D., Steinberg, M., Wu, R., & Potenza, M. (2005).
Self-Reported Gambling-Related Suicidality Among Gambling Helpline
Callers. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 19(2), 175-183. Retrieved
Tuesday, July 11, 2006 from the PsycINFO database.

The two articles cited are:

Phillips, D. P., Welty, W. R. & Smith, M. M. (1997). Elevated suicide
levels associated with legalized gambling. Suicide and Life-Threatening
Behavior, 27, 373-378.

McCleary, R., Chew, K. S. Y., Merrill, V. & Napolitano, C. (2002). Does
legalized gambling elevate the risk of suicide? An analysis of U.S.
counties and metropolitan areas. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior,
32, 209-221.

If you can get your hands on any of these articles, they may help out.
Good luck with the search!

Thomas Arendall-Salvetti
Reference/Instruction Librarian
Langsdale Library
University of Baltimore
1420 Maryland Avenue
Baltimore, MD 21201
410-837-4275
tarendall-salvetti at ubalt.edu 

-----Original Message-----
From: project-wombat-bounces at lists.project-wombat.org
[mailto:project-wombat-bounces at lists.project-wombat.org] On Behalf Of
John Henderson
Sent: Tuesday, July 11, 2006 1:26 PM
To: list at project-wombat.org
Subject: [PW] ?suicide rate by city

I'm looking for a table of suicide rates by US city. The closest I can 
find is a breakdown by state, found in the CDC's National Vital 
Statistics Report: Deaths, Final Data for 2003, issued April 19, 2006.

Context. Is there a corolation between casino gambling and high suicide 
rates? This is not necessarily backed up by Table 29. "Number of deaths,

death rates, and age-adjusted death rates for major causes of death for 
the United States, and each State...." Nevada (19.4) is well above the 
national average (10.8), but finishes 3rd behind Wyoming and Montana. 
New Jersey (6.8) has one of the lowest suicide rates in the country.

John Henderson
Ithaca College Library
jhenderson at ithaca.edu


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