Neighborhood ethnic density and suicide risk among different migrant groups in the four big cities in the Netherlands

Résumé

textbfPURPOSE: Recent studies suggested a favorable association between the ethnic density of the neighborhood and the risk of psychotic disorders among ethnic minorities. In this study, it was investigated whether this so-called éthnic density hypothesis' is also relevant to suicide risk, which is not sensitive to bias associated with ethnic differences in access to health care and reflects a broad range of mental health problems. textbfMETHODS: Suicides in the four big cities in the Netherlands during 2000-2011 were ascertained using the cause of death register of Statistics Netherlands and analyzed in a multilevel Poisson model in relation to individual- and neighborhood-level characteristics. textbfRESULTS: With increasing non-Western minority density, the adjusted rate ratio (RR) of suicide in non-Western immigrants compared to native Dutch persons decreased from 0.69 to 0.39 (P textless 0.001). This was explained by higher suicide rates among Dutch persons (RR = 1.28