THE BIG-TEN STUDENT SUICIDE STUDY - A 10-YEAR STUDY OF SUICIDES ON MIDWESTERN UNIVERSITY CAMPUSES

The Big Ten Student Suicide Study was undertaken from 1980-1990 to det ermine the suicide rates on Big Ten University campuses, The study des ign attempted to address many of the statistical and epidemiological f laws identified in previous studies of campus student suicides, The 10 -year study collected demographic and correlational data on 261 suicid es of registered students at 12 midwestern campuses. The largest numbe r of suicides for both males and females were in the 20-24-year-old ag e group (46%), and amongst graduate students (32%), The overall studen t suicide rate of 7.5/100,000 is one half of the computed national sui cide rate (15.0/100,000) for a matched sample by age, gender, and race . Despite the overall lower suicide rate, the analyses revealed that s tudents 25 and over have a significantly higher risk than younger stud ents, Although women have rates roughly half those of men throughout t heir undergraduate years, graduate women have rates not significantly different from their male counterparts (graduate women 9.1/100,000 and graduate men 11.6/100,000).