Geographic ‘hot spots’ for cigarette and firearm deaths in the U.S.

Re:Geographic ‘hot spots’ for cigarette and firearm deaths i... by cjensen on Sunday September 17, 2023 @06:54PM (#37550145)

Some random observations on this...

1. The suicide difference between the Mountain & Basin West vs the Great Plains surprises me. I would have expected Wyoming and Nebraska would have been more similar.

2. The gradient across Texas is interesting, particularly the lack of both suicide and smoking death in the southwest part of the state compared to the northeast.

3. Rural Nevada counties, except the northernmost two, utter lack the suicide rate that is seen in nearly all of Arizona.

4. It's not helpful to conflate these three causes of death. Seems like it would be better as separate maps

5. It's not helpful to color-code these maps as a binary choice between "has problem" and "does not have." I wonder how much subtlety is hidden by not using a gradient.

6. Unlabeled graphs are a sin. What is the definition of "hot spot?" And why is it hidden from the casual reader?

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Re:Geographic ‘hot spots’ for cigarette and firearm deaths i... by fbdab103 on Sunday September 17, 2023 @06:58PM (#37550176)

Given suicide is relatively rare, I am wondering if this might be an artifact of low absolute population?

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Re:Geographic ‘hot spots’ for cigarette and firearm deaths i... by ianai on Sunday September 17, 2023 @07:03PM (#37550221)

Yes, rural Nevada is a whole other level of barren. That big “county” in the center is federal land with almost no (maybe none at all?) population.

Also this is just firearm suicide. Maybe more enlightening with a general suicide from any cause indicator.

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Re:Geographic ‘hot spots’ for cigarette and firearm deaths i... by fbdab103 on Sunday September 17, 2023 @08:01PM (#37550655)

Apparently 55% of suicides are by firearms, 29% by hanging/suffocation, so guns do represent the majority[0].

[0] https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2022.9550...

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Re:Geographic ‘hot spots’ for cigarette and firearm deaths i... by Perceval on Monday September 18, 2023 @09:28AM (#37555804)

Yes, it jumps out that a lot of the county-level, patchwork pattern exhibited in the firearm-suicide data may be an artifact of the very low populations in many of those Western counties: https://medium.com/@uwdata/surprise-maps-showing-the-unexpec...

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Re:Geographic ‘hot spots’ for cigarette and firearm deaths i... by pierat on Sunday September 17, 2023 @06:57PM (#37550174)

> 6. Unlabeled graphs are a sin. What is the definition of "hot spot?" And why is it hidden from the casual reader?

Given that hidden fact, along with conflating firearm assaults vs suicide, tells me there's a definite bias of the story provided.

Suicide is usually a last resort to life when faced with either hard to undo things, or impossible to undo things.

I haven't dug much into this, but my guess it's something to do with the group that correlated this. But again, I find displays like this suspect.

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