NCJ Number
124804
Journal
Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica Volume: 81 Issue: 4 Dated: (April 1990) Pages: 332-334
Date Published
1990
Length
3 pages
Annotation
The association between each component of the overall quality of life and rates of personal violence were explored as were the relationship between changes in the overall quality of life and changes in rates of personal violence over time.
Abstract
These associations were examined for a sample of 43 countries with available data and separately for a sample of the most industrialized countries, namely, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Federal Republic of Germany, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and the United States. Ratings of the overall quality of life for various countries in 1969 and 1979 and for the components of the quality of life in 1979 were obtained from Estes and rates of suicide and homicide for 1970 and 1980 from the World Health Organization. For the 43 countries, only 5 of the 11 components of the quality of life index correlated with suicide rates and only 6 with homicide rates. Education, health, and demographic components were the strongest correlates. For the industrialized nations, fewer components correlated with the rates of personal violence, but the associations were more consistent for homicide rates than for suicide rates. Changes in the quality of life from 1969 to 1979 were not associated with suicide rates in 1980 or changes in suicide rates during the 1970s. However, increases in the quality of life in the industrialized nations were associated with greater increases in the homicide rates during the 1970s and higher homicide rates in 1980. 5 tables, 7 references.