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We investigated the demographic correlates associated with suicide bereavement among a representative sample of U.S. adults from the 2016 General Social Survey. A secondary aim of this study was to use this representative data platform to cross-check official data findings of U.S. completed suicides. Questions on suicide bereavement were administered to 1,432 GSS 2016 respondents and these were cross-tabulated with various demographic and social activity variables included in this omnibus survey to investigate whether suicide bereaved respondents shared any distinctive demographic characteristics. Findings showed that friends of the suicide deceased person outnumbered the deceased's first degree relatives by at least 2 to 1. We also observed older, White, Non-Hispanic, and native born women were over-represented among the suicide bereaved. The suicide bereaved were also less likely to live in the Pacific region, and to live in the nation's largest cities, and were more likely to come from homes where a gun was owned by someone in the household. More of the suicide bereaved reported themselves to be in poorer physical health and bereaved women were more likely to be Facebook subscribers. These findings are consistent with other data on U.S. suicide patterns and the greater likelihood of firearms being utilized in suicide deaths. These revealed demographic correlates of suicide offer valuable information to helping agencies seeking to reach potential clients among the suicide bereaved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A total of 56 Japanese and 59 American survivor of suicide support group facilitators were asked to rank the mutual aid objectives of their groups following Shulman's scheme in terms of their frequency and importance. Both American and Japanese facilitators showed an emphasis on personal adaptation goals (such as helping bereaved feel less isolated in their grief or encouraging bereaved to share their coping with loss experiences) over collective goals (such as raising monies for more research on mental illness or trying to combat societal suicide stigma in their local communities). Differences were also noted with American facilitators evaluating helping with problem solving, sharing different ways of coping, viewing personal issues as societal problems, and advocating for promoting social change as significantly higher than the Japanese did. We believe some of these contrasts reflect differences in American and Japanese cultural values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unlabelled: Utilizing Add Health longitudinal data, we compared 21 male suicide casualties to 10,101 living respondents identifying suicide correlates.Method: 21 suicide decedents completed surveys in 1994/1995 (Wave 1) and 11 completed at Wave 3; responses were compared with Chi-square and oneway ANOVA tests.Results: Suicide decedents were prone to higher delinquency and fighting at Wave 1, but not at Wave 3. At Wave 1 suicide decedents remained undistinguished from living respondents in depression, self-esteem, and drug uses. Yet, after Wave 3, the 11 respondents dying by suicide showed significantly higher depression, drug use and lower self-esteem.Conclusion: Delinquency trends can readily understood, but more complex causes are needed to account for unexpected changes in self-esteem, depression and drug uses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study was based on a sample of male high school students who completed National Longitudinal Adolescent Health Surveys in 1994, 1995, and 2001. We studied these students prospectively, comparing those who later died by suicide (n = 21) with those who were still living (n = 10,101). We employed chi-square and analysis of variance tests for statistical significance between suicide decedents and living respondents. Results showed suicide decedents were more likely to have experienced the suicide loss of another family member, to have been expelled from school, to have engaged in more delinquent actions including fighting, and to have greater involvement with the criminal justice system. Although one might have expected suicide casualties to have exhibited a greater amount of suicidal thoughts, attempts, and higher incidences of suicidality among their friends, our analyses did not find that these factors were associated with actual suicides. Should these findings be replicated, this would point to a need to refine youth suicide risk assessments. Collecting life histories, as well as identifying patterns of delinquency and fighting, may serve as more potentially fruitful means for assessing genuine suicide risk than some traditional risk assessment methods.z. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background:This study was based on over 30,000 U.S. respondents who completed General Social Surveys between 1978 and 2002.Aims:We approached these respondents prospectively, comparing and contrasting the responses of those who subsequently died from drug-poisonings (N= 135) with all respondents who were still living,N= 23,559.Method:We employed cross-tabulation and logistic regression analyses to test for statistically significant differences between drug-poisoning death casualties and all living respondents.Results:Consistent with past research findings, younger males were over-represented among drug death casualties. Also consistent with past studies, drug casualties showed evidence of perceiving themselves as socially marginalized in comparison to living respondents: More reported themselves in poorer health, as having been sexual minority members during the last 5 years, as having spent their younger years in homes where parents’ marriages disrupted, with fewer owning homes and feeling less satisfied about their financial situations.Conclusions:These exploratory findings obtained from a general population survey reinforce findings from clinical studies and help advance clinical assessments of potential at-risk individuals who might be identified sooner, lest they succumb to future fatal drug poisonings. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

It is not known whether the American public accepts smokefree bars and restaurants. Anticipating public displeasure with these ordinances, tobacco, liquor and restaurant industry trade associations have helped to stall efforts to pass laws curbing bar and restaurant smoking in the expectation that diminished patronage would inevitably result. This cross-sectional trend study uses data from the May 1993 and January 1999 Current Population Surveys, Tobacco Use Supplements to compare tobacco-control attitudes among American bar and restaurant workers, all other workers, smokers and nonsmokers (total n = 90,661). It was found that by 1999, smokefree workplaces were widely accepted by two-thirds of adults, with half favoring completely smokefree restaurants. Completely smokefree bars remained less popular, with nearly equal numbers (about 30%) preferring them or favoring unrestricted bar smoking. Even among bar and restaurant industry workers less than 10% favored unrestricted restaurant smoking. Greater acceptances of smokefree bars are now taking hold, especially in places like California, where acceptance rose 15% in six years, and 45% preferred them. Opponents to smokefree bars and restaurants may have underestimated the levels of support and growing acceptance of smokefree living areas now taking hold among the general public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives. This study compared problem gamblers, problem substance users, dual-problem individuals, and persons without these problems in the general population. Methods. On the basis of computer-assisted telephone interviews of a random sample of Texas adults (n = 6308) standard instruments were used to gauge substance use and gambling problems in the general population. Results. Compared with those having a substance use or gambling problem only, dual-problem individuals were more likely to be young, never-married men, without conventional religious affiliations. There was more dysfunctionality (as evidenced by treatment-seeking and problems with the law) among dual-problem respondents than among those troubled exclusively by gambling or substance use problems. Conclusions. Screening and treatment for gambling problems should be offered in drug treatment and criminal justice arenas. (Am J Public Health. 1998;88:467-470) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investigates the results of past research, of comparatively low prevalence rates of smoking among Afro-American adolescents and high use patterns for Afro-American adults. Differences among blacks and whites in early cigarette uptake; Tobacco use and cessation patterns among adults.

Focuses on polydrug use among college students in the United States. Description of polydrug users; Social and demographic characteristics of polydrug users; Demographic profiles for alcohol and drug-using groups; Factors associated with being a collegiate multidrug user.

Previous research has documented many behavioral problems associated with being a female victim of sexual assault, but little attention has been devoted to whether this experience might be related to premature mortalities. We investigated this utilizing the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health survey, collected from over 10,000 adolescent females in 1995, whose premature deaths ( n  = 65) were noted in 2007 in National Death Index records. Significant associations were found between females with a substance misuse history and their premature deaths, but not with being a sexual assault victim. The subset of respondents ( n  = 208) evincing both these characteristics showed significantly higher risks of dying prematurely, as did those females with early histories of drug misuse alone. Yet, adolescent females with histories of drug misuse who also attempted suicide ( n  = 214) did not show similar elevated risks of dying prematurely compared to others without these experiences. This exploratory evidence points to an affinity between both being a female sexual assault victim and having an early history of misusing drugs, putting such people at heightened risks for dying prematurely, suggesting the potential benefits of counseling and supportive services for those so affected.

With survey data collected primarily from peer support group participants, the authors compared stigmatization responses of 462 parents losing children to suicide with 54 other traumatic death survivors and 24 child natural death survivors. Parents who encountered harmful responses and strained relations with family members and non-kin reported heightened grief difficulties. After controlling for time since the death and whether a child's death was traumatic or not, stigmatization continued to be associated with grief difficulties, depression, and suicidal thinking. Suicide survivors reported little differences in stigmatization from other-traumatic-death survivors, a result consistent with other recent studies, suggesting more convergence between these two populations than divergence.

This analysis explores associations between differing death circumstances and the course of bereavement among a sample of 540 bereaved parents. Comparisons were made between parents whose children died by suicide (n = 462), those losing children from other traumatic death circumstances (n = 54), and others whose children died from natural causes (n = 24). Results were mixed, showing suicide survivors with more grief difficulties and other mental health problems on some criteria, though most findings showed no substantive differences between these subgroups. Results also showed, in the first years after loss, repeated suicide attempts and prior negative relationships with the decedent were associated with greater grief difficulties. However, as more time passed, all death circumstance differences were overshadowed by the importance of the time span since loss. This data also suggested that between 3 and 5 years usually marks the turning point, when acute grief difficulties accompanying a suicide loss begin to subside.

Although many clinical studies document a relationship between gambling and suicidality, evidence of this association in general population surveys has been mixed. Probing this association in a nationally representative sample of young adults with data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health, we made same gender comparisons of depression and suicidality between 298 at-risk gamblers and 13,000 others. Although gamblers of both genders showed higher depression, only females reported significantly higher suicide thoughts and attempts. Males with gambling problems were no more likely than nongamblers to have suicide thoughts or to make prior suicide attempts on three separate measurement occasions.