A Suicide Per Day...

Yup. There you have it. To make sure we get it right, let's make a clear distinction between correlation and causality. We'll lay it out real clear. Living in or going to Las Vegas, Nevada doesn't cause suicide. Yet, a whole bunch of people who live there or end up visiting the Sin City are correlated to have a higher risk of suicide, 50 percent for residents and two-fold increase for visitors when compared to other visitor destination options. The city's current rate is one suicide per day, a rate that is twice as high as the rest of the country. This finding is also reinforced by another interesting correlation from the same study. City residents who leave the state to visit elsewhere are less at risk to complete suicide.

Who Dunnit?
The gambling doesn't do it, rather the want for a last chance sinful workout, unbeknown to your family and neighbors, is the correlation between suicide and Las Vegas.

Sinful Study
Dr. Matt Wray et. al. published the article and their findings in the current issue of Social Science and Medicine. With the support of his buddies from Harvard, "they looked at 40 million death records from across the country, spanning 30 years..." amounting to 600,000 suicides.

Any Beef?
Nope, not really. But I am curious. What if, as Morton Silverman of University of Chicago said, it's that people predisposed to suicide are some how drawn to Las Vegas? How large of an effect does predisposition have, if any? What role does religious faith play, if any? Are the suicide rates by race or by age proportional to what is found for the rest of the country? Once the fun was had, what if the emptiness for sinful living once had was just too painful to bear?

Dr. Thomas Joiner, author of Why People Die by Suicide, found in his research three factors that mark those most at risk of death by suicide: the feeling of being a burden on loved ones; the sense of isolation; and, the learned ability to hurt oneself. Maybe a visit to Vegas allows you to bat two out of three?

After the Fact
While people can focus on the numbers of those passed and on the preventive measures that can be instituted to prevent further suicides, I am a stand for those who live in the aftermath. If for every death an estimated 10 people are significantly affected, what of the 6,000,000 left-behind? What of them, indeed. Just another set of members in the silent majority.

The Afterw@rd