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Abstract
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The correlation between an index of alienation of Americans and the suicide rate of the United States from 1966 to 2007 was 0.42.
Almost every year since 1966,25 Lou Harris poll takers have asked Americans the same five questions about their agreement with the following statements: the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, what you think doesn't count very much anymore, the people running the country don't really care what happens to you, most people in power try to take advantage of people like you, and you're left out of things going on around you. From the responses, they calculate an alienation index.
The alienation index for the period 1966-2007 was obtained from the website26 and suicide rates for the United States from the World Health Organization. 27 The Pearson correlation was 0.42 (df=34, two-tailed p <.01). Thus, years in which Americans were more alienated had higher suicide rates. Of course, other social variables also may be associated with the suicide rate in the United States, but this is the first report of the present association.
25 The alienation questions were not asked in 1967, 1970, 1975, 1979, 1980 and 1981.
26 www.harrisinteractive.com
27 www.who.int
Language: en |