Why is there a racial disparity in suicide?

Who taught you math? If the rate for a group is 8.4 out of every 100k, it is irrelevant to that rate, what percentage of the population, that group represents.
And a growth in an the size of all the group, does not imply that the rate would change from 8.4 per 100k.

 

could be gang related too, more young suicidal African Americans join gangs, like more white Americans become school shooters and take their own life

 

The comparison group is to whites. There’s the adversity argument another poster already mentioned and the first thing that came to my mind is their better social support. They tend to emphasize an extended network of family more than whites. Guns are another interesting factor - makes suicide more ‘successful.’ Previously it was something like 35% of whites and 24% of blacks owning guns. But I heard black ownership increased. I wonder if their suicides did/will go up too.

 

If you read this article, you will understand how it works: https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/how-to-calculate-per-capita

 

Certainly not based on those broad categories, none of which describe a single "race" by any definition of the term (as meaningful as it is anyway). If you wanted to identify any genetic or social factors, you'd need to define the groups on the basis of genetic or social grouping rather than a broad (and increasingly complex) "racial" identity.

In the US particular, there is also the obsession with defining everything on the basis of race, first and often alone, ignoring any other possible factors including factors that can be caused by the US obsession with race (such as historic and ongoing social, legislative and economic discrimination). You actually reflect an aspect of that, in choosing to focus on (and your source leading with) the range of "racial" disparities running from 6.9 to 16.8 while ignoring the reported state-based disparities which run from 6.9 to 32.8.

This is an interesting example in that it appears to be more positive for the "black" group over "white", which I expect is why you're getting pushback on the validity of the raw statistics. If the results had been reversed, I doubt there would have been a second question about that (I did initially wonder whether that was actually your subtle point).

 

Sorry, but you're wrong.

How could 3807 (black) be a rate of 8.4 per 100K but 41,426 (white) be a rate of 16.5 per 100K if it was based on the same population?

 

Sorry, it was @Condor060 who made the argument that blacks have a lower suicide rate than Native Americans.

 

How do they not describe a single "race?"

 

What, that it's racial?

 

Well, for example, "black" could cover origins across the entire continent of Africa and in to the Middle East and culturally could be African, Caribbean, Middle Eastern, European or North American. Similarly, "Asian" (by the US definition, which is somewhat different to the European one) could cover origins from well in to central Asia, through parts of the Indian subcontinent, and right across the Southeast Asia and Pacific Islands, thus incorporating a massive range of different cultures before you even consider generational migration. "American Indian/Alaska Native" is literally two distinct groups, with "American Indian" potentially covering people originating from South and Central America.

That isn't to say these categories aren't valid or useful, only that their broad and imprecise natures need to be recognised and understood so they're not treated as a be-all and end-all but more of a starting point for discovering and understanding the root causes of any identified differences.

 

It is not uncommon for differing races to have vastly differing rates of disease. Some of these differences can be explained due to cultural differences such as rates of heart disease and diabetes etc, but others cannot be explained away culturally such as sickle cell anemia and multiple myeloma for blacks, and a host of metabolic disorders for non white Hispanics. These differing prevalence rates among races are well-known in the medical community, and while something like sickle cell anemia is clearly genetic, the differences for some of the others are not nearly as clear as to why.

The vast majority of suicide is attributed to severe clinical depression which is primarily considered nature as opposed to nurture. It is not clear if differing suicide rates are due to natural selection, cultural, or genetic factors, but all of them are very realistic possibilities. I think that we are conditioned to believe that there are not any differences between races genetically, but as evidenced by sickle cell anemia alone, clearly there are genetic differences that exist.

 

You don't know that this is a study on suicide in the US?

 

Yes it's ridiculous. People seem to think that differences between races genetically means that whites are superior to other races!

 

Of people resident in the US when they die, and even people born and raised in the US will be influenced by their family backgrounds in all sorts of different ways. If you're going to distinguish between "black" and "white", why wouldn't you also consider the differences between, for example, West African and North African heritage or Caribbean and East African cultures (not to mention all of the social, economic and regional factors which will inevitably be intertwined with perceived racial/cultural/national identities)?

Again, there is nothing fundamentally wrong with considering the broad categories as a starting point, but if you're really looking to understand the reasons for any apparent differences, you'd have to go in to much more detail.

 

I agree.

Take "Hispanic" as an example. I know and have worked with quote a few of the Amigos, I can tell you with no doubt that those of Mexican heritage and with those of Puerto Rican heritage rarely associate with each other. They have conflicting cultural values. Not unlike how Blacks of Jamican decent have cultural values that conflict with American cultures of African heritage.

Same skin colors, but different behavioral norms.

 

. . . so you admit it means jack **** in terms of "something inherent in a particular race."

 

Those are extremely low rates. When rates are that low, a small difference makes it appear that the difference is more significant.

 

Maybe if blacks didn't kill each other at such a higher rate more would live to kill themselves

 

Already addressed

 

Already addressed

 

Already addressed

 

You are wrong and seem unable to admit it. Per 100k is in reference to the particular group of people in question. So per 100k for black people only considers black people and allows their RATE to be compared to white people. It's a standardized rate that is already corrected for the population size you allude to, allowing groups of different sizes to be compared to each other in terms of likelihood for each person. This is an important thing to understand for population statistics - it gets around what you are referring to. Your concerns would be valid IF it were about total numbers of suicides uncontrolled for subpopulation sizes.

 

I know. Your right. I thought my post claiming their rate was based on their individual population was clear.
The formula is based on 100,000 in (deaths) divided by (population) x 100,000. Which using the black population current numbers is actually 9, but they claimed 8.4, which is close enough.

 

I believe everyone is going at this wrong. Like I said in another post, the rates are extremely low and it does not take much to skew it one or the other.

Rather than looking at race, I would look for other reasons. There are many reasons for suicide. Anywhere from family problems to mental problems. Or just having to adapt to a new life style after a life change. For example, the suicide rate among veterans is 31.7 per 100,000.

To keep things in perspective, I try to look at situations in terms of known factors. For example, the population of the small town I live closest to, is around 1000 people. At the rates quoted for white people, I would expect a suicide in that town about once every six years. Given that the local funeral home has a funeral a couple of times month, once every six years does not amount to much.

 

No, you tried to address it, but you messed up the calculation. You did [population]/[incidence] when it should be the other way around (and you even got that wrong).

For the "black" rate, you used 3320/3708 = 0.87 (which isn't the 0.08 you said or the 8.4 it should be). Anyway, if that was the correct calculation, the rate for "white" would be 3320/41426 = 0.08 (which isn't anywhere near 16.5 it should be). Also, for the entire population, the source data reports 48183 incidents for a rate of 14.5, but 3320/48183 = 0.07 (so even with the right population figure, that calculation still gives the wrong answer).

Using the correct calculation ([incidence]/[population]), 48183/3320 = 14.5, which is correct for the entire population. If you took the "black" incidence but the national population, you'd have a rate of 3708/3320 = 1.11, which obviously isn't right either. To get the reported rate for "black" suicides of 8.4, you need 3708/441. And the 441 * 100,000 indicates a population of 44.1 million, which just so happens to be around the black population of the US.

So, the reported suicide rates for each subgroup are indeed based on the population of each subgroup, as is standard for these kind of statistics in pretty much any context precisely because it does take account of different sized subpopulations.