Social Control and Youth Suicidality: Situating Durkheim's Ideas in a Multilevel Framework

Abstract

Although the suicide rate among U.S. youth between the ages of 10 to 24 dramatically increased during the past 50 years, little research has examined this outcome within larger social contexts of the adolescent environment. Relying on Durkheim's theory of social integration, we examine the effect of individual- and structural-level social integration on adolescents' suicidality. Using a sample of 6,369 respondents within 314 neighborhoods, we examine the assumptions that high levels of religious, familial, neighborhood, and school integration are associated with fewer suicide attempts among youths. We find support for the traditional Durkheimian assumptions; specifically, the proportion of religiously conservative residents in a neighborhood reduces youths' risk of attempting suicide, as do individual-level controls of school and parental attachment. Moreover, we find evidence for a cross-level interaction between depression and neighborhood level of religiosity. Depression increases youths' risk of attempting suicide, but in places where religion is very important, this positive effect of depression is diminished.