Health, Suicidal Thoughts, and the Life Course: How Worsening Health Emerges as a Determinant of Suicide Ideation in Early Adulthood

Carlyn Graham; Andrew Fenelon

doi:10.1177/00221465221143768

Health, Suicidal Thoughts, and the Life Course: How Worsening Health Emerges as a Determinant of Suicide Ideation in Early Adulthood

Carlyn Graham, Andrew Fenelon

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

Poor physical health places adults at greater risk for suicide ideation. However, the linkage between health and suicidal thoughts may emerge and become established during early adulthood, concomitant with other social processes underlying suicidality. Using nationally representative survey data from Waves III through V of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (n = 8,331), we examine the emergence of health as a predictor of suicide ideation across the early adult life course (ages 18–43). We find that worsening health does not significantly predict suicide ideation until young adults approach the transition into midlife. Our findings suggest this may be due to the increasing severity of health problems, reduced social network engagement, and disruption of social responsibilities later in early adulthood. Our findings underscore the need for social science research to examine the relationship between mental and physical health from a life course perspective.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	62-78
Number of pages	17
Journal	Journal of health and social behavior
Volume	64
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1177/00221465221143768
State	Published - Mar 2023
Externally published	Yes

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The authors of the study acknowledge assistance provided by the Population Research Institute at Penn State University, which is supported by an infrastructure grant by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (P2CHD041025). This study uses data from Add Health, which is directed by Robert A. Hummer and funded by the National Institute on Aging cooperative agreements U01 AG071448 (Hummer) and U01AG071450 (Aiello and Hummer) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Waves I-V data are from the Add Health Program Project, grant P01 HD31921 (Harris) from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), with cooperative funding from 23 other federal agencies and foundations. Add Health was designed by J. Richard Udry, Peter S. Bearman, and Kathleen Mullan Harris at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2023.

Keywords

early adulthood
life course
self-rated health
suicide ideation

PubMed: MeSH publication types

Journal Article
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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Health, Suicidal Thoughts, and the Life Course: How Worsening Health Emerges as a Determinant of Suicide Ideation in Early Adulthood

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

PubMed: MeSH publication types

UN SDGs

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