Citation

Landberg J. Suicide Life Threat. Behav. 2009; 39(4): 452-459.

Affiliation

Centre for Social Research on Alcohol and Drugs (SoRAD), Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden. jonas.landberg@sorad.su.se

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, American Association of Suicidology, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1521/suli.2009.39.4.452

PMID

19792986

PMCID

PMC2810378

Abstract

The aim of this paper was to estimate how suicide rates in the United States are affected by changes in per capita consumption during the postwar period. The analysis included Annual suicide rates and per capita alcohol consumption data (total and beverage specific) for the period 1950-2002. Gender- and age-specific models were estimated using the Box-Jenkins technique for time series analysis. No significant estimate was found for males. For females the total alcohol estimate (0.059) was significant at the 10% level whereas the spirits estimate was significant with an effect of 0.152. The results imply that a change in U.S. per capita consumption would result in a change in female suicide rates, whereas the male rates would not be affected.

Language: en