Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T01:07:02.206Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

On the age-period-cohort analysis of suicide rates

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

Stephen C. Newman  and
Ronald J. Dyck
Stephen C. Newman*
Affiliation:
Mental Health Services, Alberta Department of Community and Occupational Health and the Department of Psychiatry, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Ronald J. Dyck
Affiliation:
Mental Health Services, Alberta Department of Community and Occupational Health and the Department of Psychiatry, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
*
1Address for correspondence: Dr S. C. Newman, Mental Health Services, Alberta Department of Community and Occupational Health, 10030–107 Street, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, T5J 3E4.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Synopsis

Cohort analysis has become a popular method of examining national trends in suicide rates. Most of the studies investigating this phenomenon have reported a cohort effect to be present. Using a graphical approach, this paper places cohort analysis within the broader framework of age-period-cohort analysis. It is shown that published reports may have failed to identify cohort effects due to using only portions of the available data. With a simple mathematical model it is demonstrated that what appears to be a cohort effect may be a period effect, and conversely. It is recommended that suicide rates be examined for both period and cohort effects before conclusions are drawn regarding trends, and that the complete data set be used for this purpose.

Type
Research Article
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 18 , Issue 3 , August 1988 , pp. 677 - 681
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bishop, Y. M. M., Fienberg, S. E. & Holland, P. (1975). Discrete Multivariate Analysis: Theory and Practice. MIT Press: Cambridge, Mass.Google Scholar
Barnes, R. A., Ennis, J. & Schober, R. (1986). Cohort analysis of Ontario suicide rates, 1877–1976. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry 31, 208–213.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fienberg, S. E. & Mason, W. M. (1979). Identification and estimation of age-period-cohort models in the analysis of discrete archival data. In Sociological Methodology (ed. Schuessler, K. F.), pp. 1–67. Jossey-Bass: San Francisco.Google Scholar
Frederick, C. J. (1978). Current trends in suicidal behaviour in the United States. American Journal of Psychotherapy 32, 172–200.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Frame, E. L. (1983). The analysis of rates using Poisson regression models. Biometrics 39, 665–674.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldney, R. D. & Katsikitis, M. (1983). Cohort analysis of suicide rates in Australia. Archives of General Psychiatry 40, 71–74.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Häfner, H. & Schmidtke, A. (1985). Do cohort effects influence suicide rates? Archives of General Psychiatry 42, 926–927.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Holford, T. R. (1983). The estimation of age, period and cohort effects for vital rates. Biometrics 39, 311–324.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Holford, T. R. (1985). An alternative approach to statistical age-period- cohort analysis. Journal of Chronic Diseases 38, 831–836.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kupper, L. L., Janis, J. M., Salama, I. A., Yoshizawa, C. N. & Greenberg, B. G. (1983). Age-period-cohort analysis: an illustration of the problems in assessing interaction in one observation per cell data. Communications in Statistics – Theory and Methods 12, 2779–2807.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kupper, L. L., Janis, J. M., Karmous, A. & Greenberg, B. G. (1985). Statistical age-period-cohort analysis: a review and critique. Journal of Chronic Diseases 38, 811–830.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Murphy, E., Lindesay, J. & Grundy, E. (1986). 60 years of suicide in England and Wales: a cohort study. Archives of General Psychiatry 43, 969–976.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Murphy, G. E. & Wetzel, R. D. (1980). Suicide risk by birth cohort in the United States, 1949 to 1974. Archives of General Psychiatry 37, 519–523.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Osmond, C. (1985). Using age, period and cohort models to estimate future mortality rates. International Journal of Epidemiology 14, 124–129.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Osmond, C. & Gardner, M. J. (1982). Age, period and cohort models applied to cancer mortality rates. Statistics in Medicine 1, 245–259.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Reed, J., Camus, J. & Last, J. M. (1985). Suicide in Canada: birth-cohort analysis. Canadian Journal of Public Health 76, 43–47.Google ScholarPubMed
Solomon, M. I. & Hellon, C. P. (1980). Suicide and age in Alberta, Canada, 1951 to 1977: a cohort analysis. Archives of General Psychiatry 37, 511–513.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed