Lindex #2571

Goss MEW, Reed JI

Suicide and Religion: A Study of White Adults in New York City, 1963-1967

Life-Threatening Behavior

1971; 1(3):163-177

This study involved New York City persons whose deaths were attributed to suicide for the five year period, 1963-1967. There were 4,421 such decedents. Data were obtained concerning age, sex, color, method of suicide and place of suicide. The religion of the decedents was inferred from recorded religious affiliation of the cemetery of burial. Those whose cemetery of burial was a city cemetery or was located out of the city or country were placed in an unknown religious category. The results of two independent sample surveys of the New York City population were employed to estimate the total population of New York City for 1965. Analysis of the data on religion was confined to whites because there were too few Catholics and Jews among the non-white population to allow for meaningful comparisons. The study was restricted to Catholics, Protestants and Jews above the age of 25. 2,975 suicides out of 3,477 fit these criteria and were therefore employed in the analysis. There were 996 suicides among Jews for an average annual rate of 16.2 per 100,000. The figures among Catholics and Protestants were 1,070 for a rate of 10.3 and 1,220 representing a rate of 21.3. The age-adjusted rate for all three religious groups was 15.8 per 100,000; that for the Jews was 15.5, Catholics, 11.3 and Protestants, 31.3. The male Jewish, Catholic and Protestant rates for those 25 years of age and above were 17.8, 14.9 and 47.6, respectively. For females, the comparable rates were 14.9, 7.4 and 19.3, while for both sexes they were 16.2, 10.9 and 31.5 respectively. The Protestant rates were higher than those of the Jews in every age group. There were important variations among members of the three religious groups when age and sex were controlled simultaneously. The differences between Jewish and Protestant males over age 65 were considerable but were not found to be as great when females were considered. Catholic males had higher rates than their Jewish sex peers above the age of 45. The rate declined somewhat among Jewish and Protestant men in the middle age categories and rose sharply thereafter. This trend failed to hold true among Catholic males and females or among Jewish women. The decline among Protestant women took place in the older rather than the middle years. Jewish males and females importantly experienced almost the same rates during their middle years, or 14.9 and 14.8, respectively.

Jews were overall more likely than Catholics or Protestants to commit suicide by jumping or poisoning, and less likely to hang or shoot themselves. 4.8 percent of Jewish suicides were by Firearms. The comparable figures for Catholics and Protestants were 10.7 and 13.0, respectively. Jewish men and women were less likely in all 3 age categories to employ firearms as a method of suicide.