Firearm Suicide Completers of US-born and Foreign-born from Countries with Different Levels of Gun Possession Rate: Findings from the 2017 National Violent Death Reporting System Dataset (Preprint)

Abstract

Suicide is a serious public health issue. Understanding suicide methods is important in developing suicide prevention interventions with a focus on controlling access to tools used for suicide. However, little research has been done using the gun ownership rate by the country of origin to understand the relation between cultural/ethnic backgrounds and suicide methods.

This study examines suicide method preferences among US-born and foreign-born suicide completers in consideration of the firearm acceptability of the decedent’s country of origin

Multivariate logistic regression was used with data on 28,895 suicide completers of 37 States obtained from the 2017 National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) dataset. Firearm possession rates of foreign-born suicide completers’ countries of origin were obtained from the 2017 Small Arms Survey.

The firearm suicide rate was about twice high among US-born suicide completers than among their foreign-born counterparts. Meanwhile, hanging suicide was about 75% higher among the foreign-born than among the US-born. Those from the countries with a low and mid-level gun ownership rate were significantly less likely to use firearms compared to the US-born (OR=0.45 and OR=0.46, respectively), while there is no statistical difference in firearm suicide between US-born and foreign-born individuals from countries with a high gun possession rate.

The results suggest that there is an association between preference for firearm as a suicide method and the availability and acceptability of firearms in the corresponding culture. One of the causes behind the high rate of firearm suicide in the US might be understood in the country’s sociocultural context related to firearms.