The connection between macro and micro levels: states' spending for hospitals and their suicide rates

Abstract

A trend analysis of states' spending for hospitals and their suicide rates in 1960, 1970, 1980, and 1984 showed that states' spending for hospitals was not directly related to their suicide rates until 1984. The analysis also showed that in 1984, states' spending for hospitals was not only directly and inversely related to their suicide rates, but also accounted for a 5% increase in their variance. Drawing on Durkheim's theory of social integration, the analysis took into account the effects of states' divorce rates, rates of population change, population density, and the economic level and racial composition of states' population. Following policy trends in health care more generally, the findings call attention to the wider implications of institutional norms of cost containment at all costs and states' suicide rates, and thus to the largely ignored connection between macro and micro levels.