Title: The relationship between the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and suicide rates: evidence from panel data

Authors: Suzan Odabaşi

Addresses: Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Department of Economics, Uşak University, Uşak, 64200, Turkey

Abstract: Suicide is a serious economic and public health problem of this century. In addition to the public health consequences of suicidal behaviours, the economic losses are significant and can result in loss of productive capacity, earnings, treatment costs, and work loss costs. This study investigates whether the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) payments/benefits have an impact on mental-health related suicides. The estimation is conducted for three different groups: 1) the overall group; 2) the female group; and 3) the male group by applying two different approaches: the fixed-effects and the quantile regression methods. The findings show that the SNAP benefits help to reduce stress-associated suicides. Additionally, the results support that accessing health services and having health insurance are two important factors associated with the number of suicides per 100,000.

Keywords: welfare payments; government expenditures and health; instrumental variables (IV) estimation; SNAP; Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program; suicide.

DOI: 10.1504/IJHD.2023.131523

International Journal of Happiness and Development, 2023 Vol.8 No.1, pp.1 - 16

Received: 23 Feb 2022
Accepted: 08 Jun 2022
Published online: 16 Jun 2023 *

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