Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America's Heartland

by Jonathan M. Metzl

A crude rate is, roughly, the total number of deaths among residents of a specified geographic area, divided by the total population for the same geographic area for a specified period, and multiplied by 100,000.

Crude rates allow for the most basic form of comparison across different populations and locales. For instance, Missouri has several million more people than Connecticut. Crude rates adjust for this difference.

Data tracking gun suicides in Missouri and Connecticut between 1985 and 2015 roughly followed the same trends as those reported by Crifasi and her colleagues in their analysis of the years 1981 to 2012. Crude suicide rates in Missouri generally declined until 2007, then began to rise. Importantly, the steepest increases occurred in the per...

The charts we produced added depth to the Johns Hopkins analysis. For instance, white non-Hispanic men topped every other group for gun suicide in every year since 1985, surpassing the average of all other men combined, and trended even higher after the PTP legislation. On the opposite page is a chart that compares white men with the aggregate of all men, African American men, and white women. And below that is a similar breakdown for Connecticut.

Meanwhile, firearm suicides by persons of every other demographic group showed what is called random variability, spiking occasionally but otherwise demonstrating relatively lower levels and no consistent increases or decreases over time.