Integration-Regulation and Rural Suicide: a Test of Three Alternative Models

This study examined the social structural determinants of rural suicide rates. Examining rates of white male suicide in rural & urban counties of the American Gulf States region, this research examines the theoretical & empirical implications of rural-urban location within sociology’s integration-regulation hypothesis of suicide. Drawing upon research from sociology, criminology, & social psychology, this study tests the differential explanatory power of 3 alternative theoretical & empirical predictor models of rural & urban suicide rates. Overall findings underscore the need to examine suicide rates as distinct outcomes of location-specific social processes.