Demographic distributions of suicide and homicide cases for individuals born in the U.S. between 1949 and 1972, and who died in the U.S. between 1990 and 2004, are listed in Table 1, along with the demographic distribution of the living population, based on the time-averaged population for the 1990–2004, estimated as described in the Methods. Demographic patterns for both suicide and homicide in these specific birth cohorts are comparable to those for full-population data in the U.S. (e.g., Heron et al., 2009). For example, demographic risk factors for suicide included male sex and non-Hispanic White race/ethnicity. Homicide risk was associated with male sex, and non-Hispanic Black or Hispanic race/ethnicity. There were very small differences in suicide risk by birth year, age, or period. Younger people are generally at higher risk for homicide, but homicide rates have come down over time, leading to pronounced reductions in the percentage of homicides occurring during the later periods of the era that is the focus of our analyses (Klaus and Rennison, 2002).
