Income Inequality and Suicidality in the United States

Background/Purpose: Income inequality has been increasing for decades and is now known to be related to many downstream health outcomes. Much research has found greater inequality to be a predictor of poorer health. However, results of investigations into the specific relationship between income inequality and suicidality have been mixed. This has been true of research on the United States and internationally.

Methods: This study leverages the most recent data available from the nationally representative National Longitudinal Mortality Study to investigate the relationship between state-level income inequality and suicide mortality. A series of rigorously controlled logistic regression models, employing multiple measures of inequality, and multiple suicide mortality case-control specifications were used to investigate the phenomenon.

Results: Results indicate that the odds of suicide mortality increase with inequality and this result is invariant across all models meaning this relationship is robust to various sets of controls and to all specifications of income inequality. A reduction in the Gini coefficient from the highest to lowest values of income inequality observed in U.S. states may reduce the odds of suicide mortality by 20-55% or more.

Conclusion and Implications: Findings have application for social workers and other mental health professionals with respect to clinical assessment and treatment. Likewise, community organizers, policy advocates, and legislators should be aware that policy solutions reducing income inequality in the U.S. are a mechanism for alleviating the suicide mortality burden, one of the leading causes of death in the nation.