Investigation of the marked and long-standing spatial inhomogeneity of the Hungarian suicide rate: A spatial regression approach

Bálint, Lajos; Döme, Péter; Daróczi, Gergely; Gonda, Xénia; Rihmer, Zoltán

doi:10.1016/j.jad.2013.10.047

Cited by 21 publications

(20 citation statements)

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“…Second, most of the research using a social or sociological perspective on religion as a predictor of suicide deaths has focused on aggregate data (e.g., Balint et al 2014;Burr et al 1999;Chon 2017;Faria et al 2014;Hsieh 2017;Phillips 2013;Stack and Laubepin 2018; for reviews see Colucci and Martin 2008;Lester 2000;Stack 1982Stack , 2000Stack and Kposowa 2016). As such, it is unclear to what extent the persons suiciding are persons relatively low in religiousness.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Religious Activities and Suicide Prevention: A Gender Specific Analysis

Stack

2018

Religions

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The present analysis contributes to the existing literature on religion and suicide in three interrelated ways: (1) providing an analysis of suicide completions whereas most research is based on non-lethal levels of suicidality; (2) assessing the relationship with concrete individual level data on completed suicides instead of aggregated data marked by the ecological fallacy issue; and (3) providing gender specific analyses to determine if the relationship is gendered. METHODS. Data come from the U.S. Public Health Service, National Mortality Followback Survey. They refer to 16,795 deaths including 1385 suicides. Significant others of the deceased were interviewed to measure all variables. The dependent variable is a binary variable where 1 = death by suicide and 0 = all other causes. The central independent variable is an index of religious activities. Controls are included for five categories of confounders (1) psychiatric morbidity; (2) help-seeking behavior; (3) Opportunity factors such as firearms; (4) social integration; and (5) demographics. RESULTS. Multivariate logistic regression analysis determined that controlling for 16 predictors of suicide, a one unit increase in religious activities reduced the odds of a suicide death by 17% for males and by 15% for females. The difference in coefficients is not significant (Z = 0.51). Other significant predictors of suicide deaths included suicide ideation (OR = 8.87, males, OR = 11.48, females) and firearm availability (OR = 4.21, males, OR = 2.83, females). DISCUSSION. Religious activities were found to lower suicide risk equally for both men and women. Further work is needed to assess pathways, including suicide ideation, between religious activities and lowered suicide risk. This is the first U.S. based study to test for a gendered association between religion and suicide at the individual level of analysis.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Religious Activities and Suicide Prevention: A Gender Specific Analysis

Stack

2018

Religions

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“…Ecological level unemployment might be strongly correlated with income inequalities that was also found to be significantly associated with mortality (Kopp, Csoboth, and Réthelyi 2004) similarly to aggregate indicators of economic performance (Lackó 2011;Skrabski, Kopp, and Kawachi 2003). Balint et al (2014) did not find a significant association between unemployment and suicide, whereas Döme et al (2011) reported the lack of significant association between economic performance and suicide. This divergence from other studies can be both explained by the ecological level study design of Bálint et al and Döme et al, or by the fact that suicide is more strongly correlated with mental health than with socioeconomic factors, as also confirmed by Rihmer et al (2013).…”

Section: Social Determinants Of Mortalitymentioning

confidence: 94%

“…Unemployment was found to be a significant predictor of mortality in three studies (Skrabski, Kopp, and Kawachi 2003;Kopp et al 2006;Lackó 2011), and insignificant in one study (Balint et al 2014).…”

Section: Social Determinants Of Mortalitymentioning

confidence: 95%

“…In a recent paper using a spatial autoregressive model Balint et al (2014) found significant association between mortality, the lack of political involvement and the lack of religious involvement. Skrabski, Kopp, and Kawachi (2004) found significant associations between mortality and the lack of religious involvement, social mistrust and low collective efficacy using ecological level linear regressions.…”

Section: Social Determinants Of Mortalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is worth mentioning that the two studies that measured the impact of medical services on mortality found no significant correlation (Balint et al 2014;Lackó 2011). One of the studies uses suicide as the outcome variable, the other uses national level aggregate data on the number of doctors as a proxy for the quality of health infrastructurethese methodological decisions might explain the lack of significant impact.…”

Section: Social Determinants Of Mortalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

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The wounds of post-socialism: a systematic review of the social determinants of mortality in Hungary

Scheiring

Irdam

King

2017

Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe

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Eastern Europe underwent one of the most dramatic economic and demographic changes in recent history with skyrocketing mortality rates in some countries during the 1990s. The case of Hungary among the post-socialist transition countries is puzzling for several reasons. Although the Hungarian transition has been often characterised as smooth and successful, a look at the human dimension of the transformation reveals large costs and a slow improvement. Based on the analysis of 29 articles we provide a systematic review of the empirical evidence about the social determinants of mortality in post-socialist Hungary establishing a hierarchy of causes. Socioeconomic position, mental health, social capital, alcohol consumption, stress, and social integration are the most important explanatory variables that received attention by the researchers. Although economic policies might have played a central role in the rise of mortality there is no empirical research on the political economy of health in Hungary. No critical analysis of post-socialism can be complete without assessing the human costs of economic transformation. Social scientists have much to learn from social epidemiologists who have designed robust methodologies and complex theoretical frameworks to analyse the political economic determinants of health.

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