Suicide in London. An Ecological Study: Peter Sainsbury

1992 ◽  
Vol 160 (3) ◽  
pp. 428-430
Author(s):  
Rosalind Ramsay

It is almost a hundred years since Durkheim noted that the suicide rate for any country stayed surprisingly constant over time, and differed consistently from that found in other nations. This striking observation led him to argue that a community's suicide rate varied with the extent to which individuals identified with the social group that both controlled and defined their activities. If a group lost cohesion, it could no longer impose such order, and the individual's striving would lack purpose and meaning. So, for example, in times of economic crisis when social controls may be more relaxed, Durkheim predicted an increase in ‘anomic’ suicides.

Author(s):  
Daniel Oro

Throughout the book, I have been searching for empirical examples and theories dealing with how perturbations trigger behavioural feedback responses in social animals, how these responses affect the decision to disperse between patches, and the consequences of dispersal for complex, nonlinear population dynamics. What seems quite clear is that social feedbacks—and especially runaway dispersal by copying—do play an important role in those responses, compared to solitary species. Although philopatry to the patch has many benefits, perturbations may decrease the suitability of this patch. When a patch is perturbed, do social species show different responses than solitary species? Since evolution has selected for maximizing fitness prospects, individuals living either in groups or in solitary will try to avoid the detrimental effects of the perturbation, for instance by leaving the patch. The behavioural mechanisms triggered by perturbations are similar for both social and solitary species: increase of information gathering to reduce uncertainty and the use of this updated information to make optimal decisions about either staying or leaving. Thus, the answer is that solitary and social species show similar responses to perturbations. Nevertheless, the way those behavioural mechanisms operate is rather different between social and solitary species: in the former, information is shared among individuals, and decisions about when to leave the patch and where to go are made not only using private or personal information, but mostly using social information. Last but not least, there is social copying, a trend to copy in a nonrational way what others have decided before. This social copying, also called conformity, may trigger what I termed runaway dispersal: perturbations may accumulate over time, decreasing resilience of the social group until attaining a tipping point. Once this threshold is surpassed, the decision to disperse is led by a few individuals, and this decision is copied by the rest of the group in an autocatalytic way....


Author(s):  
Shuang Chen

By tracing the development of a single metropolitan banner family from the time of initial settlement to the end of the Qing, this chapter asks how the strategies used by individual families to survive and to expand their wealth shaped the social structure of Shuangcheng. It shows that, over time, some capable metropolitan banner households accumulated large amounts of land through private land cultivation and land sales. Moreover, because they lacked the support of a powerful kinship organization, metropolitan banner families acted collectively to negotiate with the state authority for their benefits. By the end of 1870s, wealth accumulation has transformed metropolitan bannermen from a state-defined population category to a powerful and wealthy social group in Shuangcheng society.


2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (S1) ◽  
pp. S111-S111 ◽  
Author(s):  
M.M. Dumitru ◽  
B.S. Constantin

IntroductionSince 1897, Émile Durkheim noted that suicides occur more often during the economic changes that disrupt the social structure of society.Objective and aimsThe objective of this study is to analyze the consequences of last global economic crisis on mortality by suicide in the EU countries in period 2007–2012.Material and methodWe extracted data on mortality from the WHO database and unemployment trends from the EUROSTAT database. We had used this data to calculate the effect of unemployment on suicide rate, in pre-2004 and post-2004 EU countries.ResultsIf the number of suicides from 2007 was maintained in 2008–2012 period, EU 27 countries would have registered with 16,572 fewer suicides. The increase of suicides is based on the increasing number of suicides in men. The small increase in the suicide rate was recorded in Austria, France, Hungary and Slovenia. Luxembourg was the only country where the number of suicides was lower compared to 2007. In 2008, we can notice a slight decrease in the unemployment rate compared to 2007 and an increase in suicide by 3% in both groups of countries, followed by increasing suicide only in the post-2004 EU, where reach 10% in 2010, followed by a slight decrease in the coming years, while the unemployment rate gradually increases to 46% compared with 2007.ConclusionsIn European Union countries, suicides have increased both before and during the crisis, in periods in which unemployment rose. States that joined the EU after 2004 are more vulnerable in times of crisis.Disclosure of interestThe authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.


2018 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Hirshleifer ◽  
Siew Hong Teoh

AbstractEvolved dispositions influence, but do not determine, how people think about economic problems. The evolutionary cognitive approach offers important insights but underweights the social transmission of ideas as a level of explanation. The need for asocialexplanation for the evolution of economic attitudes is evidenced, for example, by immense variations in folk-economic beliefs over time and across individuals.


Crisis ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 59-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antoon A. Leenaars ◽  
David Lester

Canada's rate of suicide varies from province to province. The classical theory of suicide, which attempts to explain the social suicide rate, stems from Durkheim, who argued that low levels of social integration and regulation are associated with high rates of suicide. The present study explored whether social factors (divorce, marriage, and birth rates) do in fact predict suicide rates over time for each province (period studied: 1950-1990). The results showed a positive association between divorce rates and suicide rates, and a negative association between birth rates and suicide rates. Marriage rates showed no consistent association, an anomaly as compared to research from other nations.


2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-133
Author(s):  
Marzena Możdżyńska

Abstract In recent decades, we observe a significant disorganization of family life, especially in the sphere of parental functions performed by unprepared for the role emotional, socially and economically young people. Lack of education, difficulties in finding work, and the lack of prospects for positive change are the main causes of their impoverishment and progressive degradation in the social hierarchy. Reaching young people at risk of social exclusion and provide them with comprehensive care, should be a priority of modern social work and educational work. In order to provide help this social group and cope with the adverse event created a lot of programs to support systemically start in life. An example would be presented in the article KARnet 15+ program as a form of complex activities of a person stimulating subjectivity, and allows you to modify support in individual cases


Author(s):  
Gerhard Bosch ◽  
Thorsten Kalina

This chapter describes how inequality and real incomes have evolved in Germany through the period from the 1980s, through reunification, up to the economic Crisis and its aftermath. It brings out how reunification was associated with a prolonged stagnation in real wages. It emphasizes how the distinctive German structures for wage bargaining were eroded over time, and the labour market and tax/transfer reforms of the late 1990s-early/mid-2000s led to increasing dualization in the labour market. The consequence was a marked increase in household income inequality, which went together with wage stagnation for much of the 1990s and subsequently. Coordination between government, employers, and unions still sufficed to avoid the impact the economic Crisis had on unemployment elsewhere, but the German social model has been altered fundamentally over the period


Author(s):  
Christel Lane

This largely descriptive chapter introduces the reader to the specific features and functions of each type of hostelry and provides a broad-brush picture of their historical development, activities, ways they influenced each other, and importance in their role in out-of-home consumption of food, drink, and sociality. It outlines their social, economic, and political functions, and places them in their societal context. The pub was always the lowest in the social hierarchy among the three. Yet, it has been the longest survivor and has gradually taken over some of the functions formerly performed by inns and taverns. Inns and taverns, however, persist in the British social imagination and, where their buildings have survived, they lend distinction to a village or part of town. Both continuities and changes over time, as well as some overlap between the three hostelries, are described using examples of places and personalities.


2021 ◽  
pp. 146954052110160
Author(s):  
Tiziana Brenner Beauchamp Weber ◽  
Eliane C. Francisco Maffezzolli

This research identifies the relationship between consumption practices and the construction of social identity among tweens in a Brazilian context. Using consumer culture theory and social identity theory, we employed 80 h of observation, 9 interviews, and projective techniques with fifteen girls. Three social identity groups were acknowledged: naive, connected, and counselors. These groups revealed different identity projects, such as the integration and maintenance within the social group of current belonging, the access to the social group with the greater distinctions, the generation of differentiable and positive distinctions (both intra- and intergroups), and the expression and consolidation of identity and its respective consumption practices. This research contributes to the consumption literature that relates to consumer identity projects. The findings reveal a current resignification of girlhood and exposes tweens’ consumption practices as a direct mechanism of the expression and construction of their social identities. These are mechanisms of social identity construction as mediated by group relations through the processes of access, maintenance, integration, differentiation, and distinction.


BMJ Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. e043685
Author(s):  
Kefyalew Addis Alene ◽  
Zuhui Xu ◽  
Liqiong Bai ◽  
Hengzhong Yi ◽  
Yunhong Tan ◽  
...  

ObjectiveThis study aimed to investigate the spatial distribution of drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB) in Hunan province, China.MethodsAn ecological study was conducted using DR-TB data collected from the Tuberculosis Control Institute of Hunan Province between 2012 and 2018. Spatial clustering of DR-TB was explored using the Getis-Ord statistic. A Poisson regression model was fitted with a conditional autoregressive prior structure, and with posterior parameters estimated using a Bayesian Markov chain Monte Carlo simulation, to quantify associations with possible risk factors and identify clusters of high DR-TB risk.ResultsA total of 2649 DR-TB patients were reported to Hunan TB Control Institute between 2012 and 2018. The majority of the patients were male (74.8%, n=1983) and had a history of TB treatment (88.53%, n=2345). The proportion of extensively DR-TB among all DR-TB was 3.3% (95% CI 2.7% to 4.1%), which increased from 2.8% in 2012 to 4.4% in 2018. Of 1287 DR-TB patients with registered treatment outcomes, 434 (33.8%) were cured, 198 (15.3%) completed treatment, 92 (7.1%) died, 108 (8.3%) had treatment failure and 455 (35.3%) were lost to follow-up. Half (50.9%, n=655) had poor treatment outcomes. The annual cumulative incidence rate of notified DR-TB increased over time from 0.25 per 100 000 people in 2012 to 0.83 per 100 000 people in 2018. Substantial spatial heterogeneity was observed, and hotspots were detected in counties located in the North and East parts of Hunan province. The cumulative incidence of notified DR-TB was significantly associated with urban communities.ConclusionThe annual incidence of notified DR-TB increased over time in Hunan province. Spatial clustering of DR-TB was detected and significantly associated with urbanisation. This finding suggests that targeting interventions to the highest risk areas and population groups would be effective in reducing the burden and ongoing transmission of DR-TB.


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