Utah Latina/o/x suicide decedents less likely to die by firearm, even in rural areas: examining population-wide data from the Utah Office of the Medical Examiner

Douglas Tharp; Evan V Goldstein; Richard M Medina; Simon C Brewer; Amanda V Bakian; Hilary Coon

doi:10.3389/fpubh.2024.1358043

Utah Latina/o/x suicide decedents less likely to die by firearm, even in rural areas: examining population-wide data from the Utah Office of the Medical Examiner

Front Public Health. 2024 Apr 10:12:1358043. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1358043. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Douglas Tharp¹, Evan V Goldstein², Richard M Medina¹, Simon C Brewer¹, Amanda V Bakian^{3

4}, Hilary Coon³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Geography, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, United States.
² Department of Population Health Sciences, Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, United States.
³ Department of Psychiatry, Huntsman Mental Health Institute, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, United States.
⁴ Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, United States.

Abstract

Introduction: Suicide death remains a significantly rarer event among Latina/o/x populations compared to non-Latina/o/x populations. However, the reasons why Latina/o/x communities experience relatively lower suicide rates are not fully understood. Critical gaps exist in the examination of Latina/o/x suicide death, especially in rural settings, where suicide death by firearm is historically more common within non-Latina/o/x populations.

Method: We tested whether the prevalence of Latina/o/x firearm suicide was meaningfully different in urban and rural environments and from non-Latino/a/x decedents when controlling for age, sex, and a social deprivation metric, the Area Deprivation Index. Suicide death data used in this analysis encompasses 2,989 suicide decedents ascertained in Utah from 2016 to 2019. This included death certificate data from the Utah Office of the Medical Examiner on all Utah suicide deaths linked to information by staff at the Utah Population Database.

Results: Compared to non-Latina/o/x suicide decedents, Latina/o/x suicide decedents had 34.7% lower adjusted odds of dying by firearm. Additionally, among the firearm suicide decedents living only in rural counties, Latina/o/x decedents had 40.5% lower adjusted odds of dying by firearm compared to non-Latina/o/x suicide decedents.

Discussion: The likelihood of firearm suicide death in Utah differed by ethnicity, even in rural populations. Our findings may suggest underlying factors contributing to lower firearm suicide rates within Latina/o/x populations, e.g., aversion to firearms or less access to firearms, especially in rural areas, though additional research on these phenomena is needed.

Keywords: Hispanic/Latino; firearms; health inequities; rural health; self-injurious behavior; suicide.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

MeSH terms

Female
Firearms* / statistics & numerical data
Hispanic or Latino* / statistics & numerical data
Humans
Male
Prevalence
Rural Population* / statistics & numerical data
Suicide* / statistics & numerical data
Urban Population / statistics & numerical data
Utah / epidemiology

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This work was supported by the National Institute of Health (HC, grant number R01MH122412, R01MH123489; AVB, grant number R01ES032028). Partial support for all datasets housed within the Utah Population Data Base is provided by the Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI), http://www.huntsmancancer.org/, and the HCI Cancer Center Support grant, P30CA42014 from the National Cancer Institute. Research was supported by NCRR grant “Sharing statewide health data for genetic research” R01RR021746 with additional support from the Utah Department of Health and Human Services and the University of Utah.