Assessing Legal Strains and Risk of Suicide Using Archived Court Data |
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| Authors: | Thomas Bradley Cook PhD and Mark S Davis PhD |
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| Institution: | 1. Thomas Bradley Cook, Epidemiology & Biostatistics, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USA;2. Mark S. Davis, Criminal Justice Research Center, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA. |
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| Abstract: | Relatively little is known about legal entanglements and suicide risk. This matched case–control study estimated the risk of suicide associated with legal strains using online court archives, a novel source of exposure data. Court records linked to suicide deaths (N = 315), controls (N = 630), and unintentional injury and poisoning deaths (N = 630) for an urban county from 2000 to 2005 revealed that nearly a third of suicide victims had recent court involvement, twice the proportion among controls. Misdemeanors, car accidents, and foreclosures were each associated with a threefold risk of suicide. Implications for suicide prevention and research are discussed. |
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