National trends in suicides and male twin live births in the US, 2003 to 2019: an updated test of collective optimism and selection in utero

Prior research based on Swedish data suggests that collective optimism, as measured by monthly incidence of suicides, correlates inversely with selection in utero against male twins in a population. We test this finding in the US, which reports the highest suicide rate of all high-income countries, and examine whether monthly changes in overall suicides precede changes in the ratio of male twin to male singleton live births. Consistent with prior work, we also examine as a key independent variable, suicides among women aged 15-49 years. We retrieved monthly data on suicides and the ratio of male twin to singleton live births from CDC WONDER, 2003 to 2019, and applied Box-Jenkins iterative time-series routines to detect and remove autocorrelation from both series. Results indicate that a one percent increase in monthly change in overall suicides precedes a 0.005 unit decline in male twin live births ratio 6 months later (coefficient = -0.005, P value = 0.004). Results remain robust to use of suicides among reproductive-aged women as the independent variable (coefficient = -0.0012, P value = 0.014). Our study lends external validity to prior research and supports the notion that a decline in collective optimism corresponds with greater selection in utero.

[1]  A. Gemmill,et al.  Changes in preterm birth and caesarean deliveries in the United States during the SARS‐CoV‐2 pandemic , 2021, Paediatric and perinatal epidemiology.

[2]  R. Catalano,et al.  Cohort Selection In Utero against Male Twins and Childhood Cancers: A Population-Based Register Study , 2021, Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.

[3]  G. Shaw,et al.  Stillbirth as left truncation for early neonatal death in California, 1989–2015: a time-series study , 2021, BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth.

[4]  D. Kleinman,et al.  Addressing Health Equity and Social Determinants of Health Through Healthy People 2030 , 2021, Journal of public health management and practice : JPHMP.

[5]  Parvati Singh.  Psychiatric Emergencies Following the 2008 Economic Recession: An Ecological Examination of Population-Level Responses in Four US States. , 2021, Journal of Mental Health Policy and Economics.

[6]  A. Case,et al.  Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism , 2020 .

[7]  QuickStats: Age-Adjusted Suicide Rates, by Sex and Three Most Common Methods† — United States, 2000–2018 , 2020, MMWR. Morbidity and mortality weekly report.

[8]  T. Hartig,et al.  Collective Optimism and Selection Against Male Twins in Utero , 2020, Twin Research and Human Genetics.

[9]  A. Collins,et al.  Suicide, sentiment and crisis , 2020, The Social Science Journal.

[10]  R. Catalano,et al.  Selection in utero and population health: Theory and typology of research , 2018, SSM - population health.

[11]  B. Carroll,et al.  Advanced Daily Prediction Model for National Suicide Numbers with Social Media Data , 2018, Psychiatry investigation.

[12]  Aaron H. Anglin,et al.  The Impact of Collective Optimism on New Venture Creation and Growth: A Social Contagion Perspective , 2018 .

[13]  D. Sandweiss,et al.  Suicides as a response to adverse market sentiment (1980-2016) , 2017, PloS one.

[14]  G. Shaw,et al.  Selected birth defects among males following the United States terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. , 2017, Birth defects research.

[15]  M. Barrett,et al.  Trends in Emergency Department Visits Involving Mental and Substance Use Disorders, 2006–2013 , 2016 .

[16]  T. Hartig,et al.  Twinning in Norway Following the Oslo Massacre: Evidence of a ‘Bruce Effect’ in Humans , 2016, Twin Research and Human Genetics.

[17]  Ken R. Smith,et al.  Reduced costs of reproduction in females mediate a shift from a male-biased to a female-biased lifespan in humans , 2016, Scientific Reports.

[18]  Daniel Schneider,et al.  Socioeconomic Variation in the Effect of Economic Conditions on Marriage and Nonmarital Fertility in the United States: Evidence From the Great Recession , 2015, Demography.

[19]  Daniel Schneider.  The Great Recession, Fertility, and Uncertainty: Evidence From the United States , 2015 .

[20]  T. Hartig,et al.  Twins Less Frequent Than Expected Among Male Births in Risk Averse Populations , 2015, Twin Research and Human Genetics.

[21]  Cécile Paris,et al.  We Feel: Mapping Emotion on Twitter , 2015, IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics.

[22]  V. Lummaa,et al.  Culled males, infant mortality and reproductive success in a pre-industrial Finnish population , 2015, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

[23]  Julie A. Phillips,et al.  Suicide and the Great Recession of 2007-2009: the role of economic factors in the 50 U.S. states. , 2014, Social science & medicine.

[24]  M. Prinstein,et al.  Social and Ecological Approaches to Understanding Suicidal Behaviors and Nonsuicidal Self-Injury , 2014 .

[25]  Gil-Young Song,et al.  Predicting National Suicide Numbers with Social Media Data , 2013, PloS one.

[26]  M. Mckee,et al.  Increase in state suicide rates in the USA during economic recession , 2012, The Lancet.

[27]  O. Bennett.  Cultures of Optimism , 2011 .

[28]  J. Ahern,et al.  Male fetal loss in the U.S. following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 , 2010, BMC public health.

[29]  R. Catalano,et al.  Selection in utero: A biological response to mass layoffs , 2010, American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council.

[30]  R. Catalano,et al.  A sex-specific test of selection in utero. , 2009, Journal of theoretical biology.

[31]  T. Bruckner.  Metropolitan economic decline and infant mortality due to unintentional injury. , 2008, Accident; analysis and prevention.

[32]  Jürgen Hoyer,et al.  Separating Optimism and Pessimism: a Robust Psychometric Analysis of the Revised Life Orientation Test (lot–r) the Internal Structure of the Revised Life Orientation Test (lot , 2022 .

[33]  Kenneth R. Olson,et al.  A Literature Review of Social Mood , 2006 .

[34]  M. Feinleib.  National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) , 2005 .

[35]  S. Berg,et al.  Exploring assistance in Sweden and the United States. , 2003, The Gerontologist.

[36]  B Starfield,et al.  Is US health really the best in the world? , 2000, JAMA.

[37]  S. Stack.  Suicide: a 15-year review of the sociological literature. Part II: modernization and social integration perspectives. , 2000, Suicide & life-threatening behavior.

[38]  S. Stack,et al.  Suicide: a 15-year review of the sociological literature. Part I: cultural and economic factors. , 2000, Suicide & life-threatening behavior.

[39]  V. Lummaa,et al.  Natural selection on human twinning , 1998, Nature.

[40]  Forbes,et al.  Parental Optimism and Progeny Choice: When is Screening for Offspring Quality Affordable. , 1998, Journal of theoretical biology.

[41]  H. Landy,et al.  The vanishing twin: a review. , 1998, Human reproduction update.

[42]  C. Ruhm,et al.  Are Recessions Good for Your Health? , 1996 .

[43]  A. Friede,et al.  CDC WONDER: a comprehensive on-line public health information system of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. , 1993, American journal of public health.

[44]  K. Hooker,et al.  Mental and physical health of spouse caregivers: the role of personality. , 1992, Psychology and aging.

[45]  S. Serxner,et al.  Time series designs of potential interest to epidemiologists. , 1987, American journal of epidemiology.

[46]  F. Eugene Yates,et al.  The national center for health statistics , 1973, Annals of Biomedical Engineering.

[47]  Dan E. Willard,et al.  Natural Selection of Parental Ability to Vary the Sex Ratio of Offspring , 1973, Science.

[48]  P. Young,et al.  Time series analysis, forecasting and control , 1972, IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control.

[49]  Larry Dossey,et al.  Optimism , 1908, Explore.

[50]  竹安 数博,et al.  Time series analysis and its applications , 2007 .

[51]  Lon-Mu Liu,et al.  FORECASTING AND TIME SERIES ANALYSIS USING THE SCA STATISTICAL SYSTEM , 1994 .

[52]  M. Kendall.  Statistical Methods for Research Workers , 1937, Nature.

[53]  E. Durkheim.  Suicide: A Study in Sociology , 1897 .