Assessing legal strains and risk of suicide using archived court data.
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.
Epidemiology & Biostatistics, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USA. tbc@case.edu
Thomas Bradley
TB
Cook
Mark S
MS
Davis
D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003416:Criminal Law / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009820:Ohio / Q000453:epidemiology; D012306:Risk; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000209:etiology*; D013405:Suicide / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*