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Contributors to suicide risk include rural residence and gun ownership. These authors examined another feature that they hypothesized might contribute to high suicide rates associated with these factors: altitude. Using 20 years of CDC data, the investigators analyzed statewide rates of gun ownership, total suicides, and firearm-related suicides, and average elevation for 2368 counties with reliable data in the continental U.S.
Significant age-adjusted associations were found between U.S. suicide rates, both with and without firearms, and average elevations, by both county and state. For the most populous county in each state, altitude remained strongly associated with suicide rates. Low population was not a mediating factor.
Results were sim…