Blood alcohol concentration level associated with use of firearm for suicide

Key takeaways:

• The odds of using a firearm for suicide after using alcohol increased with blood alcohol concentration to a certain point, then decreased.
• Intervention for heavy alcohol use may help lower suicide death rates.

Among people who drank alcohol before taking their own life, the likelihood of using a firearm increased with blood alcohol concentration up to a certain level, then decreased, according to findings published in JAMA Network Open.

Shannon Lange, MPH, PhD, an assistant professor and independent scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health at the University of Toronto, and colleagues evaluated mortality data recorded in the U.S. National Violent Death Reporting System. They identified adults who had a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) greater than 0 g/dL upon postmortem examination. Decedents with a BAC of 0.6 g/dL or more were excluded because these measurements would likely be erroneous.

In total, 45,959 male and 12,136 female decedents had a positive BAC, of whom 24,720 (53.8%) male and 3,599 (29.7%) female decedents used a firearm.

Among male decedents, the likelihood of suicide by firearm increased up to a BAC of 0.4 g/dL before decreasing; among female decedents, the odds increased up to 0.3 g/dL before decreasing.

“This association suggests that scalable interventions targeting heavy alcohol use (eg, alcohol control policies) may potentially reduce the suicide mortality rate in the U.S., which appears to be increasing again after decreasing for the past 3 years,” Lange and colleagues wrote.