Suicide rates in Fortaleza increased 157% in ten years

Objective: to analyze suicide rates between 2000-2009 in Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil. Methodology: Data was obtained from Ceará’s Institute of Forensic Medicine (PEFOCE). Estimated population by year was obtained from the Unified Health System (DATASUS). Results: A total of 1903 suicide cases were registered in Fortaleza, between 2000 and 2009. The distribution of methods was analyzed using the variables gender, age and year. Around 80% of the cases were male, corresponding to 4.3 male to female suicide rate. The most common suicide method was hanging, followed by poisoning, firearms, and jumping from heights. Among males, hanging was the most prevalent suicide method, followed by poisoning; while in females poisoning was the most prevalent method, followed by hanging. Almost half of all suicides in the study were by hanging. Conclusions: The classification of death as suicide is subject to interpretation of the coroner. Local published literature about this problem is sparse. Understanding suicide methods may provide support to more effective suicide prevention programs.

Suicide is Impacted by Culture: Gender Suicide Rates

Objective: Over the last century mental disorder has been promoted as the universal suicide trigger. This view has been discredited and other triggers are being considered. The aim is to determine whether different regions have sustained different suicide rates for the genders male and female. In the affirmative case, as gender roles are culturally determined, an impact of culture on suicidal behaviour would be confirmed. Method: The WHO Suicide Rates data by country (2016) was examined over a 17-year period. This was examined for details of countries which had demonstrated higher female than male suicide. 6 were located and an additional 6 countries were selected with similar total suicide rates and a higher male than female suicide rate. The stability of higher female or male suicide rates was explored. Results: The 6 countries with higher female suicide rates continued this pattern of behaviour over 17 years – and the countries with higher male suicide rates also continued the established pattern. Conclusions: The persistence of different gender suicide rates in 12 countries over 17 years confirmed that culture can strongly impact suicidal behaviour.

Suicide in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the City of Sarajevo

Background: Besides the war experience (1992–1995), Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) constitutes an interesting area for studies on suicidal behavior from an ethnic and religious perspective with its mixed ethnic population of Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats. Aims: The study investigates suicide in BiH and the capital city of Sarajevo before (1985–1991) and after the war (1998–2006), with special reference to gender and ethnicity. Method: Official suicide data were gathered for the two periods with regard to gender, ethnicity, and suicide methods used. Results: No differences in suicide rates were found in BiH and Sarajevo before and after the war. The male-to-female suicide rate ratio in BiH was significantly higher after the war than before the war, with an opposite tendency seen in Sarajevo. Before and after the war, the highest and stable suicide rates were among Serbs in BiH. In Sarajevo the highest suicide rates were found among Croats after the war. Hanging was the most common suicide method used, both before and after the war, while firearms were more commonly used after the war. Poisoning was a rarely used method in both periods. Conclusion: The stable suicide rates in BiH over the pre- and postwar periods indicate no evident influence of the Bosnian war on the postwar level of suicide rates, except for women in Sarajevo. Beside this exception, the findings indicate a long-established underlying pattern in suicide rates that was not immediately changed, even by war. The study supports earlier findings that the accessibility of means influences the choice of suicide method used.

Tobacco and Alcohol Tax Relationships with Suicide in Switzerland

Previous research has shown an empirical link between tobacco and alcohol use and suicide. If tobacco and alcohol use contribute to suicidal behaviors, then policies designed to reduce the tobacco and alcohol consumption may succeed in reducing suicides as well. To test this hypothesis, correlations for suicide rates with alcohol consumption, taxes on alcohol and tobacco in Switzerland were examined using sets of time-series data from Switzerland in 1965–1994. The tax on tobacco correlated significantly negatively with male standardized suicide rate. The tax on alcohol also correlated significantly with male standardized suicide rate in an autoregressive model. On the other hand, significant relationships with female suicide rate were not found. Policies designed to reduce tobacco consumption are consistent with a benefit of reducing suicides, particularly for men in this sample.

Socioeconomic Change and Suicide

This ecological study examined the association between seven socioeconomic indicators (GDP, unemployment rate, female labor force participation rate, alcohol expenditure, marriage rate, percentage of births outside of marriage, and indictable crime rate) and total, male, and female rates of suicide and suicide plus undetermined death in Ireland during the period 1968-2000. Analysis of the data expressed as absolute values showed highly significant associations between the socioeconomic indicators and the total, male, and female suicide rates. However, these associations were explained by the strongly trended data. The trended nature of the data was removed by using year-to-year differences. Analysis of the first-differenced data showed that none of the socioeconomic indicators was associated with the total, male, or female suicide rates with the exception of indictable crime, which had a significant independent effect on the female suicide rate (coefficient = 2.0, p < .01) but not on suicide plus undetermined death. This study highlights the need to use econometric methods in time-trend analyses, the lack of age-sex specific exposure data in this area, and the challenge of understanding trends in suicide in their socioeconomic context.

NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE, SUICIDE RATE IN THE ELDERLY, AND A THRESHOLD INTELLIGENCE FOR SUICIDALITY: AN ECOLOGICAL STUDY OF 48 EURASIAN COUNTRIES

Across 85 countries around the world, Voracek (2004) found a significant positive relation between estimated national intelligence (IQ) and national male and female suicide rate. The relation was not attenuated when countries’ per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and type of national IQ estimation were statistically controlled. Independently, investigating the total national suicide rate only, Lester (2003) arrived at the same conclusion. These two findings are consistent with a corollary of de Catanzaro’s (1981) evolutionary theory of human suicide, namely that a threshold intelligence is necessary for suicidality and that intelligence and suicide mortality should thus be positively related. Here, further evidence for this hypothesis is bolstered by focusing on suicide rates of the elderly. Across 48 Eurasian countries, estimated national IQ was significantly positively related to national suicide rates of people aged 65 years and over. This new ecological-level finding survived statistical controlling for a set of seven variables (type of national IQ estimation, national GDP, stableness and recency measures for suicide rates, and rates of adult literacy, urbanization and Roman Catholics), which thus are not confounding factors for the relation of intelligence and suicide mortality. Based on ecological data, the threshold IQ for suicidality is predicted to be 70 or slightly over, an estimate that is consistent with various suicidological observations.

Age, Sex, Marital Status and Suicide: An Empirical Study of East and West

The relationships among age, sex, marital status and suicidal behaviour in Australia and Hong Kong showed disparity in age-specific suicide rates among the four marital status groups, never married, married, widowed and divorced, for both sexes in the two locations. Examining the coefficients of preservation suggested the coefficient for never married to married in all cases was larger than 1, except for the groups of teenagers aged 15–19 years for both sexes and of elderly women aged 60 years or over in Hong Kong. The widowed or divorced groups have lower suicide rates than the married women among the elderly in Hong Kong. Hong Kong women seem not to have been benefited in marriage as much as men. Responsibility and workload in married life rather than low social status are the likely reasons for the relative high female suicide rate in Hong Kong. Possible cultural and environmental factors which are somewhat speculative (yet to be confirmed) are discussed.

Household Structure and Suicide in Elderly Japanese Women

From 1967 to 1986 in Japan, the proportion of three-generation households was negatively associated with suicide rates of both elderly men and women and with the over-all age-adjusted female suicide rate, qualifying the conclusions drawn by Dodge and Austin in their study.