Suicides and Political Parties
L. David Roper(E-mail: roperld@vt.edu)

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The suicide rate (number of deaths per 1000 people) varies greatly among the states in the United States. (See table at end for 1996 rates.)

An interesting question to ask is: Is there any correlation between the suicide rate and the strength of the two political parties in the states?

I compared different state's suicide-rate (SR) data for 1996 with the results of the 1996 presidential election for each state. (See table at end for votes in the 1996 election.) A correlation calculation yielded the following:

Correlation Rate
Democrat vote -0.566
Republican vote +0.452

That is, the Democratic votes for the states had a 57% negative correlation with increasing SR and the Republican votes had a 45% positive correlation. States with high suicide death rate vote much more Republican than Democratic and vice versa.

This is a plot of the suicide rate (SR) sorted by rank of the states compared to the Democratic votes and the Republican votes. (See table at end for the data.) Also shown are linear fits to the two votes. This shows visually the positive correlation of SR with the Republican vote and the negative correlation of SR with the Democratic vote. Note that the fourteen lowest SR states are definitely Democratic.

What can one conclude from these results? Whatever factors cause the large disparity for suicide rates between the various states also cause those states to tend to vote Republican. I believe that the main factors are:

My Republican native state, Oklahoma (rate=0.142), ranked 38 of 50 and my Republican adopted state, Virginia (rate=0.124), ranked 26 of 50 for increasing suicide rate in 1999.

A similar phenomonen appears to occur in the United Kingdom: http://politics.guardian.co.uk/conservatives/story/0,9061,794594,00.html

These data were taken from: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/96gm3_10.pdf.
U.S. suicides 1996 1996 election
State Suicides Population Suicides/1000 Democrat Republican Rank
New York 163 18143805 0.073 58.3% 30.0% 1
New Jersey 586 8009624 0.073 53.7% 35.9% 2
Massachusetts 490 6085393 0.081 61.5% 28.1% 3
Rhode Island 83 987858 0.084 59.7% 26.8% 4
Illinois 1061 11953003 0.089 54.3% 36.8% 5
Connecticut 292 3267030 0.089 52.8% 34.7% 6
Ohio 1054 11187032 0.094 47.4% 41.0% 7
Maryland 501 5057142 0.099 54.3% 38.3% 8
Minnesota 491 4647723 0.106 51.1% 35.0% 9
Hawaii 127 1184434 0.107 56.9% 31.6% 10
California 3408 31780829 0.107 51.1% 38.2% 11
Vermont 66 586352 0.113 53.4% 31.1% 12
Iowa 321 2848473 0.113 50.3% 39.9% 13
Michigan 1114 9739184 0.114 51.7% 38.5% 14
Mississippi 310 2709925 0.114 44.1% 49.2% 15
Nebraska 189 1647657 0.115 35.0% 53.7% 16
Wisconsin 601 5173828 0.116 48.8% 38.5% 17
Texas 2223 19006240 0.117 43.8% 48.8% 18
New Hampshire 137 1160768 0.118 49.6% 39.6% 19
Georgia 867 7332225 0.118 45.8% 47.0% 20
Pennsylvania 1428 12038008 0.119 49.2% 40.0% 21
Alabama 513 4290403 0.120 43.2% 50.1% 22
North Dakota 77 642858 0.120 40.1% 46.9% 23
Louisiana 531 4338763 0.122 52.0% 39.9% 24
North Carolina 908 7307658 0.124 44.0% 48.7% 25
Virginia 829 6665491 0.124 45.1% 47.1% 26
Kentucky 488 3881051 0.126 45.8% 44.9% 27
Indiana 738 5834908 0.126 41.6% 47.1% 28
Kansas 334 2598266 0.129 36.1% 54.3% 29
Arkansas 323 2504858 0.129 53.7% 36.8% 30
Tennessee 691 5313576 0.130 48.0% 45.6% 31
South Carolina 497 3738974 0.133 44.0% 49.8% 32
Delaware 97 727090 0.133 51.8% 36.6% 33
Maine 171 1241436 0.138 51.6% 30.8% 34
Washington 773 5509963 0.140 49.8% 37.3% 35
Missouri 760 5367888 0.142 47.5% 41.2% 36
Utah 287 2022253 0.142 33.3% 54.4% 37
Oklahoma 467 3289634 0.142 40.4% 48.3% 38
Idaho 177 1187706 0.149 33.6% 52.2% 39
Florida 2153 14426911 0.149 48.0% 42.3% 40
West Virginia 279 1818983 0.153 51.5% 36.8% 41
Oregon 520 3195087 0.163 47.2% 39.1% 42
Arizona 726 4432308 0.164 46.5% 44.3% 43
South Dakota 124 730699 0.170 43.0% 46.5% 44
Colorado 694 3812716 0.182 44.4% 45.8% 45
Wyoming 88 480085 0.183 36.8% 49.8% 46
New Mexico 318 1706151 0.186 49.2% 41.9% 47
Alaska 120 604918 0.198 33.3% 50.8% 48
Montana 174 876656 0.198 41.3% 44.1% 49
Nevada 335 1596476 0.210 43.9% 42.9% 50

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