Exploring Contextual Factors Associated with Suicide among Older Male Farmers: Results from the CDC NVDRS Dataset

ABSTRACT

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to explore how demographic, relationship, mental health, and life stressors are associated with suicide among older male farmers and to determine if these differ by age.

Methods: We conducted exploratory analyses with Centers for Disease Control (CDC) National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) 2003–2017 dataset. We identified individuals who completed suicide while working in agriculture (N = 2,106). We explored descriptive statistics for farmers who completed suicide and compared these by age using chi-square tests.

Results: The majority of the sample was male, non-Hispanic, and White. Marital status differed significantly by age, with older farmers more likely to be married or widowed. Having a mental health issue was not statistically significant by age; however, depression was most prevalent among those 65+. Older farmers who completed suicide were also significantly more likely to report physical health problems.

Conclusions: Results illustrate the vulnerability of individuals contemplating suicide and emphasize the need to consider the phenomenon from a holistic perspective that accounts for individuals nested within community.

Clinical implications: We recommend health providers consider a systems approach to suicide prevention as our results indicate individual, familial, and societal factors contributing to the incidence of suicide completion among older farmers.

KEYWORDS:

• Durkheim suicide theory
• interpersonal theory of suicide
• farmers
• older men
• suicidality

Clinical implications

• We recommend health providers consider a systems approach to suicide prevention in their communities as our results indicate individual, familial, and societal factors contributing the heightened incidence of suicide completion, especially among older farmers.

• We identified an absence of significant results regarding mental health identification, which speaks to a broader societal issue regarding inadequate accessibility to mental health services and insufficient education/awareness within agricultural communities. Thus, we recommend comprehensive mental health training of first responders and community health leaders so they can more effectively educate their communities.

• We recommend practitioners in rural areas consider organizing public forums, focus groups, or support groups in local spaces that are accessible to families dealing with household pressures and stress or navigating their grief postmortem.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from Centers for Disease Control Centers for Disease Control (CDC) National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS). Restrictions apply to the availability of these data, which were used with permission for this study. The restricted access database is not publicly available as it contains confidential information that could lead to accidental disclosure of the identity of suspects and victims. With the permission from the CDC, data are available at https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/datasources/nvdrs/datapublications.html

Notes

1. Disclaimer (suggested by CDC). “This research uses data from NVDRS, a surveillance system designed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. The findings are based, in part, on the contributions of the funded states and territories that collected violent death data and the contributions of the states’ partner including personnel from law enforcement, vital records, medical examiners/coroners, and crime laboratories. The analyses, results, and conclusions presented here represent those of the authors and not necessarily reflect those of CDC. Persons interested in obtaining data files from NVDRS should contact CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, 4770 Buford Hwy, NE, MS F-64, Atlanta, GA 30341-3717, (800) CDC-INFO (232-4636).

Additional information

Funding

This research was not supported by funding.