Relationship between leukotriene-modifying agent prescriptions dispensed and rate of suicide deaths by county in the US

Figures & data

Table 1 Observed suicide rates by age, race, and gender for each year (1999–2006). The rates shown in this table were calculated using the number of suicide deaths and the population by group, both of which were obtained from the National Center for Health Statistics, for the period January 1, 1999 to December 31, 2006

Group by age	Suicide rate per 100,000 population
	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	Total
5–14 years
Black females	0.21	0.15	0.24	0.18	0.27	0.57	0.43	0.22	0.28
Non-black females	0.26	0.34	0.32	0.34	0.26	0.44	0.31	0.34	0.32
Black males	0.64	1.01	0.84	0.81	1.02	0.82	0.80	0.90	0.86
Non-black males	0.98	1.10	0.94	0.89	0.82	0.81	0.95	0.65	0.89
Total	0.60	0.71	0.62	0.60	0.56	0.64	0.64	0.51	0.61
15–24 years
Black females	1.91	2.19	1.25	1.68	1.98	2.17	1.70	1.77	1.83
Non-black females	3.26	3.12	3.18	3.15	3.22	3.82	3.84	3.48	3.39
Black males	14.30	14.09	12.98	11.31	12.14	12.23	11.52	10.56	12.34
Non-black males	17.19	17.50	17.13	17.29	16.68	17.59	17.01	17.18	17.19
Total	10.08	10.17	9.88	9.84	9.68	10.35	10.01	9.87	9.98
25–44 years
Black females	2.47	2.64	2.64	2.45	2.74	2.84	2.77	1.99	2.57
Non-black females	6.02	5.86	5.95	6.38	6.14	6.51	6.28	6.55	6.21
Black males	15.01	14.31	14.36	15.10	14.33	13.76	13.76	14.28	14.36
Non-black males	22.51	22.24	23.11	23.24	23.07	22.94	22.75	22.60	22.81
Total	13.56	13.34	13.78	14.05	13.85	13.93	13.75	13.78	13.76
45–64 years
Black females	1.82	2.12	2.58	2.08	2.37	2.19	2.44	1.90	2.19
Non-black females	6.56	6.70	7.14	7.30	7.55	8.30	7.80	8.52	7.52
Black males	9.68	9.90	9.63	9.60	8.99	10.09	9.42	9.81	9.64
Non-black males	22.05	22.54	23.90	25.10	25.19	25.23	25.65	26.46	24.61
Total	13.22	13.52	14.32	14.88	15.02	15.42	15.35	16.01	14.78
>65 years
Black females	1.47	1.29	1.59	1.14	1.39	0.74	1.45	0.71	1.21
Non-black females	4.61	4.29	4.10	4.38	4.02	4.08	4.24	4.17	4.23
Black males	12.48	11.56	11.47	11.64	9.12	11.26	10.18	10.22	10.96
Non-black males	33.80	32.69	33.02	33.42	31.44	30.45	31.13	30.01	31.96
Total	15.77	15.16	15.24	15.56	14.57	14.28	14.67	14.19	14.92
All ages
Black females	1.71	1.85	1.83	1.69	1.94	1.96	1.97	1.49	1.80
Non-black females	4.71	4.64	4.76	4.99	4.94	5.38	5.21	5.45	5.02
Black males	10.55	10.32	10.06	9.99	9.65	9.86	9.54	9.66	9.94
Non-black males	19.55	19.52	20.14	20.58	20.27	20.32	20.46	20.54	20.18
Total (entire population)	11.22	11.17	11.48	11.76	11.60	11.84	11.81	11.92	11.61

Table 2 Observed rate of prescriptions dispensed for leukotriene-modifying agents by year. The rates shown were calculated using the number of prescriptions dispensed for each leukotriene-modifying agent, which was obtained from the Xponent™ database, IMS Health Incorporated (all rights reserved), January 1, 1999 to December 31, 2006; and along with the population data which were obtained from the National Center for Health Statistics, for the same period

Drug	Prescriptions dispensed per 1000 population
	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	Total
Montelukast	12.77	29.58	39.77	47.09	61.45	72.27	79.20	89.46	55.10
Zafirlukast	7.93	8.43	6.90	5.37	4.18	3.28	2.59	2.17	5.19
Zileuton	0.14	0.11	0.08	0.06	0.05	0.01	0.01	0.09	0.05
Class overall	20.83	38.12	46.75	52.52	65.68	75.57	81.81	91.72	60.34

Figure 1 Relationship between county-level montelukast prescribing rate per 1000 population and county-level suicide rate per 100,000 population, 1999–2006. The horizontal axis is montelukast prescriptions dispensed per 1000 population in quartiles, while the corresponding mean suicide rate per 100,000 is shown on the vertical axis. For example, the mean suicide rate for counties in the lowest quartile of montelukast prescriptions dispensed per 1000 population was 12.97, while the mean rate was 10.02 for counties in the highest quartile. The number of suicide deaths by county and the population by county were obtained from the National Center For Health Statistics, for the period January 1, 1999 to December 31, 2006, and was used to calculate the suicide rate. The number of prescriptions for montelukast by county was obtained from the Xponent™ database, IMS Health Incorporated (all rights reserved), for the same time period, and along with the population data was used to calculate the rate of montelukast prescriptions dispensed per 1000 population.