| Literature DB >> 34032310 |
Nicola Meda1, Alessandro Miola2, Irene Slongo3, Mauro Agostino Zordan2,4, Fabio Sambataro2,5.
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Every year, more than 800,000 people die by suicide, three-quarters of which are males. Economic factors influence suicide rates, but a worldwide perspective of their impact according to age and sex is lacking.Entities:
Mesh:
Year: 2021 PMID: 34032310 PMCID: PMC9292781 DOI: 10.1111/sltb.12773
Source DB: PubMed Journal: Suicide Life Threat Behav ISSN: 0363-0234
FIGURE 1Suicide rates in the world, (a) countries considered in our global analysis of suicide rates (in green). (b) suicide rates per sex, year (x‐axis), and age range (y‐axis). The labels of the age ranges representing the second half of each decade (15 to 19, 25 to 29, etc.) are omitted for ease of reading. Each tile color refers to median suicide rates per year and age range across the countries considered. Higher rates correspond to the increasing yellow color of the tile. (c) unemployment rate per year (point range = mean and confidence interval). (d, e) represent the relative risk of death by suicide conveyed by macroeconomic factors. The horizontal red dashed line corresponds to RR = 1, which is the limit for which a variable is either protective (RR < 1) or harmful (RR > 1). For four countries (Burundi, Djibouti, Guinea, and Kuwait), the role of GDP/unemployment rate on suicide deaths could not be reliably estimated, and thus, we excluded these countries from this figure. (d) the relative risk of death by suicide with an increase of 1000 US dollars (USD) in gross domestic product per capita. For ease of reading, the countries for which the risk is reported (in green on the map) are only those for which an increment of 1000 USD in GDP significantly affects suicide rates. (e) the relative risk of death by suicide with a +1% unemployment rate for females and males. For ease of reading, the countries for which the risk is reported (in green on the map) are those where unemployment rates significantly alter suicide rates in females or males or both. For each country, both sexes are reported; the first errorbar (for each country) is referred to females. Sex/sexes for which unemployment rates significantly alter suicide rates are colored in yellow. When considering the role of unemployment rates in determining suicide rates, each interaction of unemployment rate (with age, with sex, or unemployment alone) needs to be considered together with the other interactions involving unemployment, since the relative risk conveyed by a variable is dependent on the relative risks given by all the other interactions of that variable. That is, although for some countries the increase in unemployment rate seems to be protective for males/females or both, this RR has to be weighed against the role of said increase for different age ranges to evince the overall influence of an increase in unemployment. For example, the model reports that a 1% increase in unemployment rates is associated with a 1% decrease in female suicide rates in Brazil. In that case, this reduction has to be weighed against the role of a 1% increase in unemployment rate for individuals belonging to a specific age range, say 45–49, which means that this increase is associated with a 4% increase in suicide rates (thus, evidencing that a 1% percent increase in the unemployment rate is linked to a 3% increase in suicide rates of females aged 45–49)
FIGURE 2Suicide rates stratified per income classes. (a) high‐income class countries (in 2010, green) considered in our analysis. (b) suicide rates per sex, year (x‐axis), and age range (y‐axis). The labels of the age ranges representing the second half of each decade (15 to 19, 25 to 29, etc.) are omitted for ease of reading. Each tile color refers to median suicide rates per year and age range across the countries considered. Higher rates correspond to the increasing yellow color of the tile. (c) unemployment rate per year (point range = mean and confidence interval). The panels d–l are replicas of the panels described above, for countries of different income classes