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Suicide Rates Fall in Many Countries, Rise in Some
Wed June 18, 2003 09:39 AM ET
Gonzalo Argandona
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - While suicide rates have declined in most of the world, the problem is on the upswing in countries such as Russia, Australia and Ireland, according to a new report.
In the case of Russia, the situation has become so serious that suicide is the major cause of death among young males.
"This indicates the importance and urgency of integrated medical, but mainly social, interventions in the prevention of suicide in these areas of the world," the report's lead author, Dr. Fabio Levi of the Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine in Lausanne, Switzerland, told Reuters Health.
Levi and his colleagues updated global statistics on suicide, using World Health Organization data from the 1960s to late 1990s. A summary of their findings is published in the June edition of the European Journal of Public Health.
According to Levi, the suicide death rate among males in the European Union (EU) fell by more than 10 percent over the past two decades, while for women in Western Europe and North America, the rate has dropped by more than 40 percent since the 1970s.
The rise in suicide deaths observed in the 1980s among young males in some European countries, including the UK, Spain and Italy, have now tended to level off in several nations -- or to decline in others, such as Sweden. Trends were similarly favorable over recent years in Japan and in Eastern Europe -- although these latter nations maintained substantially higher suicide rates than the EU.
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These figures are the positive face of the story.
The worrying side of the report indicates that suicide is increasing in Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, with suicide death rates of 35 to 40 per 100,000 residents, Levi said.
Moreover, in Russia, suicide mortality rose over the last decade by about 10 percent for females and by more than 50 percent for males. The country now sees 66 suicide deaths for every 100,000 men ages 15 to 34.
Levi told Reuters Health that the reasons for these increases are complex, but probably include widespread alcohol abuse, based on data obtained from Russia and other former Soviet Union states.
"It is almost impossible to find a common cause for all the different trends across regions and countries, but certain factors like socioeconomic instability, unemployment, easy access to means of committing suicide, mental disorders and substance use disorders are those commonly implicated," he said.
According to Levi, the positive trends observed in several countries in recent years may be due, in part, to changes in the management of depression and other major psychiatric disorders.
He noted that results from countries like India, Sri Lanka, China and U.S. show that availability of insecticides and guns have been increasingly associated with higher suicide risk.
Among mental disorders, Levi said, depression is associated with the highest prevalence of suicide, though people with schizophrenia also had high suicide rates.
A full report on the findings is scheduled to be published in a separate journal.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=healthNews&storyID=2948998&src=eDialog/GetContent
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