Year: 1995 Source: Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, v.183, no.7, (July 1995), p.425-434 SIEC No: 19950272

The relationship between states’ spending for public welfare & their suicide rates over a 30-year period, from 1960, 1970, 1980, 1985 & 1990, was analyzed. In 1985 & 1990, the 2 variables that were important for interstate differences in suicide rates were spending for public welfare & ethnicity. In 1990, not only were suicide rates higher in states that spent less for public welfare, but this spending was the only variable that accounted for the widening of differences in states’ suicide rates.