From 1979 to 1998, there were 596,704 suicides in the United States, which is 1.4% of 42,868,100 total deaths. The median suicide rate per county was 14 per 100,000.
After sifting through all their information, it was shown that suicide rates tended to increase with an increase in elevation regardless of the age, gender, race, or income of those who killed themselves, or of the population density of the counties in which they took place. Likewise, whether or not a firearm was used in suicides did not fluctuate significantly.
The ratio for average suicide rates between the 50 highest and 50 lowest counties was about 4.2 to 1. Meaning altitude greatly differed between these two sets of counties. Obviously, the data has shown that that is not just a coincidence.
Apart from suicide, it has been found that living in higher elevations helps prevent certain diseases. With respect to disease and suicide, there is no definitive answer that has been given to resolve the question of why these correlations exist, though there are theories.
