Suicide: A Worldwide Problem: Size & Trends

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Suicide: A Worldwide Problem: Size & Trends

More are dying from suicide than in all the armed conflicts around the world.

One million suicide deaths annually are more than the casualties in all of several armed conflicts around the world and, in many places about the same or more than those dying from motor vehicle collisions.

- WHO, Figures and Facts about Suicide, 1999

Annually, over 1 million people die by suicide around the world ? many more attempt suicide.

The global average rate is 16 per 100,000.

WHO estimates 10 to 20 times more will attempt suicide worldwide. Some community-based studies indicate this figure could be as high as 40 to 60 times.

The highest rates (over 30 per 100,000) are found in Baltic region countries. The highest rates in the regions of Africa, the Americas, South-East Asia and West Pacific are found in island countries, Mauritius, Cuba, Sri Lanka and Japan.

- WHO, Figures and Facts about Suicide, 1999

Someone in the world dies by suicide every 40 seconds.

One million deaths by suicide annually represents one death every 40 seconds.

- WHO, Figures and Facts about Suicide, 1999

Each week, about 3% of people consider ending their lives.

Thinking about suicide is very common.

This is a relatively new finding from researchers in Australia. There is nothing surprising in this information, except that it took so long for it to be noticed.

Offering great hope is the calculation that the very largest majority of these people never actively harm themselves, despite being at risk. It appears that actively considering suicide is so unpleasant or distressing that people want to find better choices.

- Goldney and others, Suicidal ideation and health-related quality of life in a community, MJA, 2001

Suicide occurs in all states, provinces and countries. Of all deaths each year, suicide is the cause in 2%.

Society counts the ways that people die. They do this to follow changes in the causes of mortality. Most governments publish the data. The information is often used to make decisions about spending money for prevention programs.

Deaths by suicide are listed in every such reporting. More people die by suicide than by homicide or liver diseases or AIDS and, in many places about the same or more than those dying from traffic accidents.

Relative to how large a problem it is, suicidal behavior and its prevention receive very little funding support from governments or public health authorities around the world.

- WHO, The Injury Chart Book, 2002

Suicide rate is a measure of suicide for a group.

If we want to compare the number of suicides over a period of time in the same group or between different groups of people (such as males and females, city and country folk, influence of months of the year or seasons), we need a measuring tool that adjusts the number of suicides to the size of the group in which they occur. This tool is the rate of suicide.

The rate expresses the number of people who die by suicide in a given group of people of the same size over the same amount of time.

For suicide, the time standard is one year and the total number of people is 100,000.

Thus, rate of suicide = number of deaths by suicide X 100,000 divided by total population of group. For example, in a city of 1 million with 100 deaths in a 1 year period, the suicide rate would be 100 x 100,000 divided by 1,000,000 = 10 per 100,000.

When someone is making comparisons, you should hear a phrase like, "rate per 100,000."

- Mausner and Bahn, Epidemiology: An introductory text, 1985

Suicide rates provide a way to make comparisons between groups.

As a measuring tool, knowing the rate of suicide in a group allows us to compare it with the rate in other groups. We do this in order to learn more about groups that may be more or less likely to experience suicide.

This is how we can compare the rates between Australia, Canada, Norway and the United States with their different population sizes or between different age groups with their different suicide numbers and population sizes.

Official suicide numbers do not tell the full picture..

There are always more suicides than are officially reported. We know that a number of suicides are misclassified as an accident or left as undetermined because we simply do not know enough to place the death of that person in a category.

There are wide differences in the rules or criteria used to classify a death as suicide in different places. Recent studies have shown suicide deaths underestimated by 3-24% with 10% being widely used as a general measure of undercounting. Stigma contributes to the undercounting and variation in criteria.

Some drownings may be suicides. Motor vehicle ?accidents? are sometimes attempts at suicide.

When these occur as individual deaths, such as single motor vehicle injuries, the possibility of purposeful death or suicide cannot be fully ruled out. Certainly, some drownings and single motor vehicle deaths are ?misclassified? as natural or accidental when suicide would be more correct.

There is some data supporting this from coroner reports. Misclassifying of such deaths contributes to under reporting of official numbers.

Recent studies indicate that probably less than 5% of single occupant motor vehicle and fewer than 10% of drowning deaths are missed as suicides.

Trends

Many countries have had large increases in adolescent and young adult suicide since 1975..

In all the countries that report suicide rates to the World Health Organization, suicide is now one of the three leading causes of death among people young adults (15 - 35 years of age).

Until recently suicide was predominately an elderly problem.

Suicide is now a major problem in younger people in a third of all countries.

When 1950s data is compared with 1990s data, suicide is most common among younger people in both absolute and relative terms, in a third of all countries..

Suicide remains an important issue in the health of elderly persons.

Suicide has always been known as an issue of great concern in the elderly, and suicide rates increase even more with older and very old people. Chronic physical illnesses are a major contributing factor.

The problem of suicide in the elderly has not changed, but it has been overwhelmed in recent years by the increase in suicide among younger people.

Over the next few decades, there are going to be more and more elderly persons and they are likely to live longer and have less access to resources. By all estimations, the number of suicides is going to increase in these age groups even more.

Suicide rates have been increasing around the world over the last 50 years.

Recent data from the World Health Organization shows that suicide rates between 1950 and 1995 increased from 10.1 per 100,000 to 16 per 100,000. This is almost a 60% increase, although these figures must be interpreted with some caution as far fewer countries were reporting statistics in 1950 than in 1995..

- WHO, Facts and Figures about Suicide, 1999

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