@article{ref1,
title="Suicide in Happy Places: Is There Really a Paradox?",
journal="Journal of happiness studies",
year="2019",
author="Pendergast, P.M. and Wadsworth, T. and Kubrin, C.E.",
volume="20",
number="1",
pages="81-99",
abstract="In 2011 researchers published a paper that exposed a puzzling paradox: the happiest states in the U.S. also tend to have the highest suicide rates. In the current study, we re-examine this relationship by combining data from the Multiple Mortality Cause-of-Death Records, the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, and the American Communities Survey to determine how subjective well-being and suicide are related across 1563 U.S. counties. We extend the original study in important ways: by incorporating both absolute and relative measures of subjective well-being; by examining the happiness-suicide association at a more suitable level of analysis; and by including a more robust set of control variables in the model. Contrary to the previous study, we do not observe any significant relationship, negative or positive, between the absolute and relative well-being of places and suicide rates at the county-level. Implications for the study of suicide rates and relative deprivation are discussed. © 2017, Springer Science+Business Media B.V., part of Springer Nature.<p /><p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="1389-4978",
doi="10.1007/s10902-017-9938-y",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10902-017-9938-y"
}