TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2015//
TI  - State-level relationships cannot tell us anything about individuals
JO  - American journal of public health
A1  - Harris, Alex H. S.
A1  - Humphreys, Keith
A1  - Finney, John W.
SP  - e8
EP  - e8
VL  - 105
IS  - 4
N2  - Anderson et al.'s finding that states with legalized medical marijuana had lower suicide rates among young men calls to mind the work of the famous French sociologist, Emile Durkheim. In Le Suicide, published in 1897, Durkheim observed that suicide rates were lower in regions with a higher proportion of Catholics and concluded that social controls within the Catholic religion reduced the likelihood of Catholics taking their own lives. Durkheim's individual-level interpretation of his region-level data subsequently became a textbook example of the "ecological fallacy": the assumption that associations observed at a higher level of aggregation (e.g., state level) are mirrored at the individual level. (Am J Public Health. Published online ahead of print February 25, 2015: e1. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2015.302604).<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 0090-0036
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2015.302604
ID  - ref1
ER  -