People are significantly more likely to commit suicide when a conservative government is in power than when the country is under the rule of social democrats, Australian researchers report in today's issue of the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. Richard Taylor and colleagues from the University of Sydney studied statistics on the number of suicides committed in New South Wales between 1901, when the federal government was established, and 1998. They examined the suicide rates during both state and federal administrations in the region, which have been consistently held by either social democrat or conservative parties.

The team took into account the effects of age, annual changes in gross domestic product, the availability of sedatives, drought, and both world wars. The latter were considered because the raw data revealed that suicide rates were higher during periods of drought, and lower during World War II.

The analysis showed that when conservatives ruled both state and federal governments, men were 17% more likely to commit suicide than when the social democrats were in power, while women were 40% more likely to do so.

During periods when governing was shared between the two forms of political ideology, suicide rates fell between those seen when one of the parties controlled both the state and federal governments.

"Conservative ideology traditionally is less interventionalist and more market orientated than that of a social democrat ideology," says the team.

They add: "Depression on its own has been found to be a poor predictor of suicide, as has hopelessness, but depression and hopelessness together were found to be significantly predictive of suicidal behavior.

"That is, if hopelessness is a necessary but not sufficient condition for suicide, then regimes that offer less hope to the bulk of the population will also increase the probability of suicide in groups that have pre-existing or newly acquired risk factors for suicide."

J Epidemiology Community Health 2002; 56: 766?772

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