National Suicide Rates a Century after Durkheim: Do We Know Enough to Estimate Error?

Durkheim's nineteenth‐century analysis of national suicide rates dismissed prior concerns about mortality data fidelity. Over the intervening century, however, evidence documenting various types of error in suicide data has only mounted, and surprising levels of such error continue to be routinely uncovered. Yet the annual suicide rate remains the most widely used population‐level suicide metric today. After reviewing the unique sources of bias incurred during stages of suicide data collection and concatenation, we propose a model designed to uniformly estimate error in future studies. A standardized method of error estimation uniformly applied to mortality data could produce data capable of promoting high quality analyses of cross‐national research questions.     

Risk and Protective Factors that Distinguish Adolescents Who Attempt Suicide from Those Who Only Consider Suicide in the Past Year

Data from the 2010 Minnesota Student Survey was analyzed to identify risk and protective factors that distinguished adolescents across three groups: no suicidality, suicidal ideation only, and suicide attempt. The population‐based sample included 70,022 students in grades 9 and 12. Hopelessness and depressive symptoms emerged as important risk factors to distinguish youth who reported suicidal ideation or behavior from those without a history of suicidality. However, these factors were not as important in differentiating adolescents who attempted suicidal from those who considered suicide but did not act on their thoughts. Instead, for both genders, self‐injury represented the most important factor to distinguish these youth. Other risk factors that differentiated the latter groups, but not the former groups, for males were dating violence victimization and cigarette smoking, and for females was a same‐sex sexual experience. Running away from home also seemed to increase the risk of a suicide attempt among youth in this study. Parent connectedness and academic achievement emerged as important protective factors to differentiate all the groups, yet neighborhood safety appeared to protect against the transition from suicidal thoughts to behavior. Findings from this study suggest risk and protective factors practitioners should target in clinical assessments and intervention programs to help prevent suicidal behavior among youth at greatest risk.     

Differentiating Adolescent Suicide Attempters from Ideators: Examining the Interaction between Depression Severity and Alcohol Use

Depressed mood, frequency of alcohol use, and their combination were examined to see if they differentiated nonsuicidal adolescents from those with suicidal ideation and adolescents with suicidal ideation from those who have made a suicide attempt. Hierarchical logistic regressions indicated that frequency of alcohol use did not differentiate nonsuicidal adolescents from those with current suicidal ideation, but severity of depressed mood did so. In contrast, alcohol use was a significant differentiating factor between adolescents who had attempted suicide compared to those with suicidal ideation only, with severity of depressed mood not being significant. However, there was also a significant interaction effect such that for adolescents with suicidal ideation and low levels of depression, increased frequency of alcohol use was associated with increased odds of a suicide attempt. These findings suggest that alcohol use may hasten the transition from suicidal ideation to suicide attempt in adolescents with low levels of depressed mood.     

The Self‐Directed Violence Classification System and the Columbia Classification Algorithm for Suicide Assessment: A Crosswalk

The lack of a standardized nomenclature for suicide‐related thoughts and behaviors prompted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with the Veterans Integrated Service Network 19 Mental Illness Research Education and Clinical Center, to create the Self‐Directed Violence Classification System (SDVCS). SDVCS has been adopted by the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense. Another classification system, the Columbia Classification Algorithm for Suicide Assessment, has been recommended by the Food and Drug Administration. To facilitate the use of both systems, this article provides a “crosswalk” between the two classification systems.     

On a Pedestal—Sport as an Arena for Admiration

ABSTRACT

In philosophical analyses of the value of sport, a relatively unheralded feature is the opportunity that sport offers for admiration. While we readily salute many of the things that people admire (the amazing catch, the sensational comeback), we do not sufficiently appreciate that admiration itself is a positive good that is beneficial to the admirer. At a time when much in the world around us seems distinctly unadmirable and when admiration itself is often dismissed as naïve, athletic achievements and the qualities that propel them present palpable counter-evidence to our darker conclusions. Shining a spotlight on sports’ displays of human beings doing difficult things can pay healthy dividends, as admiration fuels aspiration.

The paper proceeds in four stages. It first explains what admiration is and then identifies the kinds of things that sport distinctly offers, to admire. The heart of it demonstrates the value of athletic admiration, tracing how this contributes to a flourishing life in three principal ways: through the role-modeling that it offers, the action that it encourages and the feelings that it fosters. Finally, the paper considers four possible objections, which serves both to clarify and to fortify its central contention.