Nearly one-half of the U.S. population (48.9%) born between 1949 and 1972 were legally permitted to drink prior to age 21. To graphically examine the relationship between MLDA and deaths by suicide or homicide, we computed birth-year adjusted death rates for each birth year cohort, and relative risk ratios describing the association between death rate and MLDA exposure. Ratios were calculated separately by sex. Results are plotted in Figure 1. Among women, relative risks for suicide associated with MLDA <21 were greater than one in 37 of 39 states (all states except Montana and Oklahoma), and relative risks for women were higher than relative risks for men in all 39 states in which MLDA changes occurred. For homicide, relative risks for women were again greater than one in all states but one (Delaware), and in most cases (28 out of 39), relative risks for women were greater than for men. This descriptive analysis leaves a number of potential confounders unaccounted for, but nonetheless, the results demonstrate a pattern in which the association between suicide risk or homicide risk and MLDA is consistently higher for women then for men.
