The Social Context of Religious Integration and Suicide: Pursuing the Network Explanation

Abstract

Recent research suggests that Durkheimian ideas on the impact of religious affiliation on suicide need to be updated and tailored to the modern cultural landscape of the United States. Following up on the importance of how historical context has shifted the integrative power of denominational networks, this article pursues the potential utility of a networks, perspective by suggesting that a significant contextual element has been neglected to date: Geographical context, both regional and rural-urban dimensions, also delimits the differential ability of religions to form a “community” of social support capable of integrating individuals. If the network approach provides a useful direction, the effects of religious affiliation across geographical areas should vary in a manner consistent with notions of how social structural opportunity and tradition (of lack thereof) affect religious network strength. Analyses of detailed suicide, religion, and sociodemographic data by region and population density in U.S. county groups do, in fact, indicate that for many major religious groups the effects of religious affiliation on suicide vary across geographical areas, consistent with network theory. For example, while Judaism's protective effect is small overall, it is large in the Northeast and reversed in the South. The protective strength also is reversed for Catholicism in the South and many Evangelical Protestant groups in the Northeast. Overall, the results suggest that region exerts a greater impact on religious affiliation effects than does population density, though the latter does impact on Catholic and Jewish effects.

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