Share American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic and Share of suicides by firearm
Where Share American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic is higher, Share of suicides by firearm tends to be lower. The link is weak: -0.34 across 994 counties, on a scale from −1 (opposite) to +1 (in step). That figure compares places with the same population density, income and education, so those differences can't explain it.
Holds after adjusting
Every place, plotted
One dot for each place reporting both measures. Hover over or tap a dot to see its name and values. The thin line is the straight line that best fits the dots. The bold line, shown for counties, is the link after adjusting for density, income and education. A dot far from the lines is a place that does not follow the pattern.
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What each measure is
Share American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic
The percentage of residents who are American Indian or Alaska Native alone and not Hispanic. They live mostly on and near reservations: Oglala Lakota County, South Dakota is 91%, while most counties are under 1%.
Census ACS 5-year · ACS table B03002_005, divided by total population
Share of suicides by firearm
The percentage of suicides that were by gun, 2018-2023. Where more households own guns, more suicides are by gun. So researchers use this as the standard stand-in for gun ownership, which nobody counts directly.
CDC WONDER mortality; RAND firearm ownership database · CDC WONDER underlying cause of death, suicide by intent, firearm by mechanism, 2018-2023
Highest and lowest
Where each measure is highest and lowest among the places reporting both (2023), with the other measure beside it. This is shown for every size of place where both are published. Metro-area values are added up from their counties. A measure that cannot be added up across counties, such as a middle value (median), has no metro figure. Counts are shown per 1,000 residents, since raw totals would only list the largest places. Cities and towns and ZIP codes are shown where the Census survey or the CDC publishes them; most other sources stop at the county. They are shown for places of 5,000 residents or more, and only where the survey’s margin of error is small enough for the figure to be usable. The CDC publishes its health estimates for cities in a version adjusted for age, so places with older or younger people can be compared fairly, but not for ZIP codes.
Counties
By share American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic
| Share American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic | Share of suicides by firearm | |
|---|---|---|
| Highest | ||
| Bethel Census Area, AK | 83.6% | 44.9% |
| Todd County, SD | 83.1% | 31.6% |
| Northwest Arctic Borough, AK | 80.1% | 35.1% |
| Rolette County, ND | 76.6% | 50% |
| McKinley County, NM | 75.1% | 28.7% |
| Lowest | ||
| Fulton County, AR | 0% | 71.4% |
| Drew County, AR | 0% | 76% |
| Wyoming County, WV | 0% | 63.3% |
| Wetzel County, WV | 0% | 66.7% |
| Wayne County, WV | 0% | 61.8% |
By share of suicides by firearm
| Share American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic | Share of suicides by firearm | |
|---|---|---|
| Highest | ||
| Teton County, MT | 1.94% | 100% |
| Ritchie County, WV | 0% | 100% |
| Jasper County, MS | 0% | 92.3% |
| Calhoun County, MS | 0% | 90.9% |
| Dunn County, ND | 10.2% | 90.9% |
| Lowest | ||
| New York County, NY | 0.103% | 6.48% |
| Queens County, NY | 0.287% | 10.5% |
| Kings County, NY | 0.131% | 12.2% |
| Bronx County, NY | 0.249% | 12.7% |
| Hudson County, NJ | 0.137% | 14.7% |
States
By share American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic
| Share American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic | Share of suicides by firearm | |
|---|---|---|
| Highest | ||
| Alaska | 13.5% | 59.9% |
| New Mexico | 8.6% | 56.7% |
| South Dakota | 7.38% | 50.7% |
| Oklahoma | 6.79% | 61.5% |
| Montana | 5.5% | 64.4% |
| Lowest | ||
| Pennsylvania | 0.0553% | 52.9% |
| Ohio | 0.0625% | 55.6% |
| West Virginia | 0.0647% | 63.4% |
| Illinois | 0.0697% | 41.6% |
| Indiana | 0.0703% | 59.8% |
By share of suicides by firearm
| Share American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic | Share of suicides by firearm | |
|---|---|---|
| Highest | ||
| Mississippi | 0.35% | 70.8% |
| Wyoming | 1.69% | 70.6% |
| Alabama | 0.257% | 70.5% |
| Louisiana | 0.408% | 65.6% |
| South Carolina | 0.18% | 64.7% |
| Lowest | ||
| Hawaii | 0.121% | 19% |
| Massachusetts | 0.0835% | 22% |
| District of Columbia | 0.106% | 24% |
| Rhode Island | 0.157% | 27% |
| New Jersey | 0.0733% | 27% |
Metro areas
By share American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic
| Share American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic | Share of suicides by firearm | |
|---|---|---|
| Highest | ||
| Gallup, NM | 75.1% | 28.7% |
| Show Low, AZ | 41.9% | 41.9% |
| Lumberton, NC | 39.1% | 57% |
| Farmington, NM | 38.5% | 47.3% |
| Tahlequah, OK | 31.8% | 67.2% |
| Lowest | ||
| Weirton-Steubenville, WV-OH | 0% | 67.7% |
| Valdosta, GA | 0% | 68.4% |
| Sikeston, MO | 0% | 58.1% |
| Roanoke, VA | 0% | 61.2% |
| Rio Grande City-Roma, TX | 0% | 67.9% |
By share of suicides by firearm
| Share American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic | Share of suicides by firearm | |
|---|---|---|
| Highest | ||
| Ruidoso, NM | 3.07% | 86.8% |
| Scottsboro, AL | 0.572% | 86.2% |
| Mount Sterling, KY | 0% | 85.7% |
| Winnemucca, NV | 2.89% | 84.8% |
| Greenwood, MS | 0% | 84.7% |
| Lowest | ||
| Urban Honolulu, HI | 0.13% | 16.6% |
| New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ | 0.138% | 18.1% |
| Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH | 0.0727% | 20.8% |
| Kahului-Wailuku, HI | 0.116% | 21.1% |
| Barnstable Town, MA | 0.298% | 22.5% |
Cities and towns — Share of suicides by firearm is not published for cities and towns
By share American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic
| Share American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic | Share of suicides by firearm | |
|---|---|---|
| Highest | ||
| Zuni Pueblo CDP, NM | 98% | — |
| Kayenta CDP, AZ | 94.4% | — |
| Shiprock CDP, NM | 93.2% | — |
| Tuba City CDP, AZ | 88.7% | — |
| Bethel city, AK | 67.8% | — |
| Lowest | ||
| Windsor Locks CDP, CT | 0% | — |
| Willimantic CDP, CT | 0% | — |
| Wethersfield CDP, CT | 0% | — |
| Trumbull Center CDP, CT | 0% | — |
| Terryville CDP, CT | 0% | — |
ZIP codes — Share of suicides by firearm is not published for ZIP codes
By share American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic
| Share American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic | Share of suicides by firearm | |
|---|---|---|
| Highest | ||
| ZIP 58316 (Rolette County, ND) | 96.5% | — |
| ZIP 86033 (Navajo County, AZ) | 95.7% | — |
| ZIP 86505 (Apache County, AZ) | 95.6% | — |
| ZIP 87327 (McKinley County, NM) | 95.3% | — |
| ZIP 87313 (McKinley County, NM) | 95% | — |
| Lowest | ||
| ZIP 08904 (Highland Park borough, NJ) | 0% | — |
| ZIP 08901 (New Brunswick city, NJ) | 0% | — |
| ZIP 08889 (Hunterdon County, NJ) | 0% | — |
| ZIP 08882 (South River borough, NJ) | 0% | — |
| ZIP 08867 (Hunterdon County, NJ) | 0% | — |
Counties furthest from the pattern
Compared with the straight line that best fits all 994 counties: the five with far more share of suicides by firearm than their share American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic would suggest, and the five with far less.
| Share American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic | Share of suicides by firearm | |
|---|---|---|
| Above the line | ||
| Teton County, MT | 1.94% | 100% |
| Ritchie County, WV | 0% | 100% |
| Jasper County, MS | 0% | 92.3% |
| Dunn County, ND | 10.2% | 90.9% |
| Cotton County, OK | 7.62% | 90.9% |
| Below the line | ||
| New York County, NY | 0.103% | 6.48% |
| Queens County, NY | 0.287% | 10.5% |
| Kings County, NY | 0.131% | 12.2% |
| Bronx County, NY | 0.249% | 12.7% |
| Hudson County, NJ | 0.137% | 14.7% |
Two series, one county
Both measures over time for a county you pick. The two charts are stacked, so they share only the years along the bottom. You can pick from the thirty largest counties reporting both. This panel covers 2010–2024, and a measure published only once shows as a single dot.
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Every version of the link
Each row measures the same link, from −1 to +1, in a different way. If the rows mostly agree, the link does not depend on one choice of method.
| Before adjusting for anything | -0.058 | 994 counties reporting both |
| After adjusting for density, income and education | -0.335 | the part of the link that is not just how urban, rich and educated a place is |
| Also adjusting for population size | -0.317 | size taken out as well as density |
| Also comparing only within each state | -0.400 | each county is compared only with others in its own state, so this is no longer a comparison between states |
| Giving bigger counties more weight | -0.176 | the adjusted link for the average resident rather than the average county. With this weighting, the data counts for about 181 equally weighted counties |
| Middle value inside single states | +0.023 | the link worked out inside each of 18 states with at least 20 counties reporting |
| Using ranks, after adjusting | -0.129 | uses each county’s rank, not its value, so a few extreme counties cannot create the link |
How much to believe it
Could it be chance?
The p-value is the chance of seeing a link this strong if there were really none. A value of 0.05 or less means the link is unlikely to be chance. Very small values are written in short form: 3.1e-16 means 0.00000000000000031, and the bigger the number after “e-”, the smaller the value. Treating every county as a separate case gives p = 2.3e-27. But counties in the same state tend to resemble each other, so the better figure allows for that: p = 2.8e-9. The site tested 20,910 pairs, and testing so many turns up some flukes. The q-value allows for that too. For this pair it is 8.6e-27.
Do nearby places look alike?
Moran’s I measures how much nearby places look alike: 0 means no map pattern, and higher means neighbours are more similar. For the part of each county that the adjustment leaves unexplained, it is +0.43 (p = 0.001). That unexplained part still clusters on the map. So some regional factor shared by both measures is not accounted for.
Did they change together?
Not measurable: at least one of these is published for too few of the years a change needs (2014–2019 or 2019–2023), or for too few counties in both.
Related pairs
- Share American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic and Years of potential life lost — +0.70
- Share American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic and Premature mortality — +0.63
- Share American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic and Life expectancy — -0.58
- Share American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic and Injury deaths — +0.48
- Share American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic and Suicide rate — +0.48
- Share American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic and Share never married — +0.47
- Share now married and Share American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic — -0.46
- Share American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic and Child mortality — +0.46
Association only. Nothing here shows that either measure changes the other. This describes counties, not the people in them. Two measures going together across places does not mean the same people have both. How the US county data works · Explore Share American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic and Share of suicides by firearm