| |
| |
| |
Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
 | |
|
The relationship between population growth and elderly suicide rates
— a cross-national study | | Author(s) | Ajit Shah |
| Journal title | International Psychogeriatrics, vol 21, no 2, April 2009 |
| Pages | pp 379-383 |
| Source | http://www.journals.cambridge.org/ipg |
| Keywords | Suicide ; Death rate [statistics] ; Demography ; Cross national surveys. |
| Annotation | Suicide rates of older people are associated with this population group's size, the proportion of them in the general population and the elderly dependency ratio. A cross-national study examining the 'a priori' hypothesis that the relationship between suicide rates of older people and average annual population growth rates would be curvilinear (U-shaped curve) fitting the quadratic equation y = a + bx + cx2 (where y is the suicide rate of older people, x is the population growth rate and a, b and c are constants) was conducted using data from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations (UN). Results showed that there was a significant curvilinear (U-shaped curve) relationship between suicide rates of older people and average annual population growth rates fitting the above quadratic equation. A theoretical model with three sequential stages incorporating population growth, the older population size, the proportion of older adults in the general population, life expectancy and birth rates was proposed to explain the findings. Caution should be exercised in the application of this model because of the cross-sectional and ecological study design whereby the findings are subject to ecological fallacy and require rigorous testing in within-country longitudinal studies over time. (KJ/RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-090825237 A |
| Classmark | EV: S5: S8: 3K |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
|
| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
| |
|
|