Individual suicide risk can be dramatically altered by social 'sameness,'

The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, examined the relationship between suicide and social "sameness"—living in communities with other individuals who share common social characteristics, such as employment and marital status, ethnicity or place of birth.Researchers found that social similarity reduced well-known individual risks of suicide for those younger than 45, unemployed, widowed, white, Black or not born in the United States.

But sameness was not always protective. Social similarity increased suicide risk for individuals who were born in the United States, had never married, or were Alaska Native, Native American, Hispanic or Asian, according to the study.

Traditional treatment and prevention efforts have focused around the idea that strong social ties protect people from suicide, and those who lose or do not have those connections are thought to be more at risk of suicide.

But according to Pescosolido and her colleagues, social similarity is not always a strong lever to reduce suicide risk. For example, their findings suggest that in isolated communities or those communities where socio-economic devastation has been great, similarity can actually increase the risks of suicide.

 

 

reference

Bernice A. Pescosolido et al, Cross-level sociodemographic homogeneity alters individual risk for completed suicide, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2020). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2006333117