This project proposes to improve the validity of police suicide death classifications and examine correlates of police suicide. Vena's, et al., (1986) municipal worker cohort will be updated and utilized as a police suicide comparison base instead of the general population. An assessment of the accuracy and comparison of """"""""official"""""""" suicide rates will be performed on a police group and two other municipal worker groups. Death classifications in the three comparison groups will have the following measures applied to determine if they are true suicides or non-suicides: (1) Rosenberg's, et al., (1988) Operational Criteria for the Determination of Suicide; (2) Judgements of three medical examiners who will not have knowledge of the decedent's occupation or cause of death; and (3) records of death certificates, medical examiner's reports, autopsy reports, and police records. Analysis of determined true suicide data will include sensitivity, specificity, and predictive value of police suicide rates as compared to the two other municipal worker groups. The hypothesis is that police rates are generally less sensitive and specific than other worker groups. A generalizable police sensitivity proportion formulation will be developed which may be useful for comparison purpose in other police suicide studies. In addition to improving suicide rate accuracy, this study will tabulate police specific suicide correlates from written historical data and records.
| Violanti, J M; Vena, J E; Petralia, S (1998) Mortality of a police cohort: 1950-1990. Am J Ind Med 33:366-73 |
| Violanti, J M; Vena, J E; Marshall, J R (1996) Suicides, homicides, and accidental death: a comparative risk assessment of police officers and municipal workers. Am J Ind Med 30:99-104 |
| Violanti, J M; Vena, J E; Marshall, J R et al. (1996) A comparative evaluation of police suicide rate validity. Suicide Life Threat Behav 26:79-85 |
| Violanti, J M (1995) Trends in police suicide. Psychol Rep 77:688-90 |
