Alcoholism and Suicide Rates by Status Set and Occupation

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Abstract
Although many investigations have shown that alcoholism and suicide are related, few show this to be the case for population rates. Furthermore, alcoholism-suicide investigations have usually failed to control for the effects of other variables, such as age, economic and marital status. Using the liver cirrhosis mortality rate as an index of the alcoholism rate, the relationship between alcoholism and suicide for age-sex-race status sets and occupations was analyzed, while the effects of age, economic and marital status were statistically controlled. For age-sex-race status sets, the Spearman rank correlation between liver cirrhosis and suicide was .75. Rank correlations for sex-race status sets for each of 10 separate age groups showed the 7 age-specific correlations from age 35 up to be positive. For occupations, the zero-order Pearsonian correlation between the 2 rates, standardized for age, was .67, indicating that the relationship is independent of age. Partial correlational analysis, controlling for median occupational income, occupational prestige and percentage of incumbents who are unemployed, single and divorced, revealed that partial r''s varied between .61 and .72, suggesting that the relationship is also independent of socioeconomic and marital status. The results permit at least 2 interpretations. One posits that alcoholism and suicide are the product of the same variables which were not controlled for, such as social disorganization, urbanization or personality structure. The other is a processual interpretation, with alcoholism viewed as leading to disrupted social relations and hence to suicide.

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