TY - JOUR
T1 - Weekly lottery sales volume and suicide numbers
T2 - A time series analysis on national data from Taiwan
AU - Chen, Vincent Chin Hung
AU - Stewart, Robert
AU - Lee, Charles Tzu Chi
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgments This study is supported by a grant from the Kaohsiung Medical University Research Foundation (KMU-Q098027).
PY - 2012/7
Y1 - 2012/7
N2 - Objective: To investigate the association between weekly lottery sales and number of suicide deaths in Taiwan. Methods: All suicides aged 15+ years during 2004-2006 in Taiwan were included. Poisson autoregression time series models investigated associations of weekly numbers with contemporaneous and recent sales from two national lotteries in operation. Adjustments were made for seasonal fluctuation, temperature, monthly unemployment and autocorrelation. Results: In fully adjusted models, suicide deaths were negatively correlated with sales of tickets for a low-prize, low-cost lottery system. However, they were correlated positively with recent sales for a higher-cost, larger-prize system. Both correlations were stronger for male than female suicide numbers but differed in terms of age groups most strongly implicated. Conclusions: Associations between lottery sales and suicide numbers differed according to the nature of the lottery. A low-prize, low-publicity system appeared to be more benign than a high-prize, high-publicity one.
AB - Objective: To investigate the association between weekly lottery sales and number of suicide deaths in Taiwan. Methods: All suicides aged 15+ years during 2004-2006 in Taiwan were included. Poisson autoregression time series models investigated associations of weekly numbers with contemporaneous and recent sales from two national lotteries in operation. Adjustments were made for seasonal fluctuation, temperature, monthly unemployment and autocorrelation. Results: In fully adjusted models, suicide deaths were negatively correlated with sales of tickets for a low-prize, low-cost lottery system. However, they were correlated positively with recent sales for a higher-cost, larger-prize system. Both correlations were stronger for male than female suicide numbers but differed in terms of age groups most strongly implicated. Conclusions: Associations between lottery sales and suicide numbers differed according to the nature of the lottery. A low-prize, low-publicity system appeared to be more benign than a high-prize, high-publicity one.
KW - Gambling
KW - Lottery
KW - Suicide
KW - Time series study
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U2 - 10.1007/s00127-011-0410-8
DO - 10.1007/s00127-011-0410-8
M3 - Article
C2 - 21681453
AN - SCOPUS:84863776913
SN - 0933-7954
VL - 47
SP - 1055
EP - 1059
JO - Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology
JF - Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology
IS - 7
ER -
