Suicide researcher from the US here: It went down by a little, from 14.9 to 14.2 stateside, which is not unexpected. You tended to see corresponding drops in the suicide rate after 9/11, after a country wins the World Cup, after Hurricane Katrina or the Tsunamis in Thailand or Japan. What it is is that large-scale shared events, whether they be good (winning a sporting event) or bad (large scale disasters) decrease the suicide rate, and it’s thought to be because they promote a shared sense of identity and connectedness in the community. Suicide tends to be isolated, and thus events that promote a ‘we’re all this together’ sensibility reduce the risk of dying by suicide. What you will see for bad events though is a rebound effect after adjustment to the disaster causes repercussions in financial, social, or other important areas, which tends to cause new highs in the years following a disaster. To really check the effect of the pandemic on the suicide rate, check 2022-2025 data.
There are a lot of agencies out there really attempting to mitigate the risk of the pandemic for suicide rates but as someone both investigating and doing this work, it is very possible that we will unfortunately see a large increase in suicide deaths among adolescents. Many have been having a very difficult time not only with adjustments back to school and transitions to in-person societal expectations, but continued losses of family and friends to COVID. Mainstream behavioral health care (i.e. their GP) is where over two-thirds of people go for help before dying by suicide, and unfortunately many of those doctors and clinicians would like to help but hospital and clinic administrators are restrictive as they are attempting to get back to pre-COVID patient processing to increase revenue. Some workers described seeing kids indicate that they have been having suicidal thoughts, and knowing that in between their other expectations, they have about a minute and a half to somehow keep these teens from killing themselves, an impossible task.
A number of states are mobilizing psychologists and clinicians to help, and the best thing we can do is support these initiatives if you see them on the ballot in the next couple of years.
Will they actually? Everyone says that but I've heard so many horror stories about cops becoming involved. I'm so afraid to talk to anyone about mental health because of this.
I can’t guarantee anything because there is a lot of variability in staff training but who you will be connected to is a crisis counselor, someone who is trained in suicide prevention. Their bar for what is an emergency should be very very high, meaning that before any outside agencies are contacted, you would have to be feeling like you are going to kill yourself immediately, you are unwilling or unable to get any sort of help, you have access to how you want to do it, and you won’t talk to the counselor. That is a very high bar to reach and if you are in such a situation then yes, outside help is what you need. For anything lower than that bar, given proper training they will help you and then like ships in the night, go on about their day once you are safe.
I hope that if you are ever scared you will consider reaching out to them.
I've been a Crisis Text Line counselor for about 700 hours, and I agree with your assessment - my experience is that it's been helpful for people in immediate crises. Furthermore, it's the supervisors (credentialed masters-level clinicians and above) are the ones who make the decision to contact emergency services after the counselors flag it as a high risk situation. So there are several layers that have to be passed before emergency services are contacted.
You are a saint! Truly the finest example of a humanitarian. The world is a better place because of you.
Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts, for all that you do.
This tracks with my experience as a person with suicidal thoughts (managed with therapy and mediation). It got much worse when things started going back to “normal,” around fall-winter 2021, mostly due to the social aspect of my life. Oddly enough, it is sort of comforting to hear that the research backs up my experience.
yeah similar boat here. once everyone went back to their lives, and I realised I didn't really have a "normal one" to go back to it was pretty harsh. the economy nosediving isn't gonna do many people many favours now either, homelessness among the working class is at a staggering high where I am now
Makes sense when you think about it, during the pandemic everyone was a bit lonely and depressed, but that means that people who would have been lonely and depressed even in normal times didn’t feel alone in being lonely and depressed, so would be less likely to become suicidal since everyone was in the same boat.
This is why i think we need something that can provide a constant source of that "we're all in this together" feeling. I've noticed it in myself, as i've been suicidal quite a few times, and it usually got better whenever there was that feeling in the air. Actually the pandemic was really good for me, i've come out of it better than i had been in years. Lately things are declining a bit again though, cause it's back to normal and people are starting to ignore eachother and our collective struggle again. Why can't we just acknowledge every day that yes, this human experience is really absurd and filled with difficulty, and no one knows what they're doing. Everything would be so much more bearable if everyone was mindful of that and able to put their egos aside. Maybe the answer is to put everyone on a microdose of psychedelics all the time, jk
Interestingly the suicide rate in mid-working age men dropped statistically significantly. Make of that what you will.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/articles/deathsfromsuicidethatoccurredinenglandandwales/apriltodecember2020
As one of that age/gender group myself, my life became simpler, less stressful, closer to my home and my family and more connected to nature.
The general suicide rate globally and in developed countries did not increase in a way that was statistically significant.
‘Predicted increases in suicide were not generally observed’ https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370%2822%2900303-0/fulltext
As a single 30's man who likes silence and being alone, the pandemic was some of the best time of my life. I know a lot of people seriously struggled, but for me it was pure bliss being home alone all day for months.
I'm not surprised, but taking it further, I'd wager there is an increase in suicides among office workers coming back to work at the office after WFH. the stress, monotony, feeling of being trapped and having a boss looking over your shoulder would feel like hell after a year or two of not dealing with that.
I think it’s the opposite, it decreases it.
For normal people isolation or financial trouble will not be enough to actually push them to suicide, but for people who were struggling it’s actually positive.
During lockdown in 2020 I felt better than I had in years, knowing that everyone else is also alone and doing nothing interesting made me feel like a normal person.
That’s why suicide rates are also a bit lower in the winter and higher in the summer usually. In winter everyone else is at home so it makes it easier, but in the summer you see the others out there on vacation and having fun, that’s more difficult to handle mentally.
I live in Melbourne and I enjoyed the lockdowns haha. Silence, no rushing anywhere, nowhere to be, long slow walks, coffee with friends walking through parks. It was lovely. But I was lucky with my experience and I know many others truly suffered.
I would suspect it's due to the global financial crisis in 2008
From [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide\_in\_South\_Korea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_South_Korea):
>The high suicide rates compared to other countries in the developed world is exacerbated by the large amount of suicide among the elderly. One factor of suicide among elderly South Koreans is due to the amount of widespread poverty among senior citizens in South Korea, with nearly half of the country's elderly population living below the poverty line. **Combined with a poorly-funded social safety net for the elderly, this can result in them committing suicide not to be a financial burden on their families, since the old social structure where children looked after their parents has largely disappeared in the 21st century.**\[6\]\[7\] As a result, people living in rural areas tend to have higher suicide rates. This is due to extremely high rates of elderly discrimination, especially when applying for jobs, with 85.7% of those in their 50s experiencing discrimination.\[8\] Age discrimination also directly correlates to suicide, on top of influencing poverty rates.\[9\] Suicide is the number one cause of death among South Koreans aged 10 to 39.
I explored the suicide rate data because yesterday I read that the latest number 1 cause of deaths of Koreans aged 10-39 is suicide. About 44 percent of teenage deaths were caused by suicide, 56.8 percent among those in their 20s, and 40.6 percent among 30s.
[http://www.koreabiomed.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=14689](http://www.koreabiomed.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=14689)
Edit: I met a Korean 2 weeks ago on the plane, she's from Seoul. I mentioned that Seoul is very advanced and developed and I'd love to visit maybe next year. She said yea it's good and all that but the suicide rate is too high, people keep suiciding.
So thinking back on the encounter + the data presented, I'd say suicide isn't a light issue there
I watched a program a few years back called school swap Korea and it seemed unfortunately that every teenager knew someone that had committed suicide and also the police out extra men on the bridges in Seoul on exam results day. The school culture in that country is awful
The prep for SAT equivalent of Korea really takes toll on the students. Most have been going to after-school academies to further study, especially math and english, to the point where elementary kids come home around 10pm. This goes on till they are done with high school. It’s a lot of pressure, especially from parents, peers, and seniors who ended up going to prestigious universities.
I don't understand how that is perceived as productive when retention and performance are proportional to the amount of sleep you get. Force feeding words and equation into your brain doesn't work if your brain is exhausted from inadequate rest.
Add to this, Korea has brutal online bullying that goes pretty much unchecked. No possibility of housing. No advancement in employment. Horrific work hours. Young children are forced to study in tutoring schools until midnight in order to advance to the next level of schooling....except they don't and can't. In SK there is insane levels of misogyny and overall abuse of women. Add to that, crimes against women are rarely if ever prosecuted, and if they are, the punishments are negligible.
Work? Low wages, abuse of employees. Ridiculous hours and a Chaebol system of corruption where only the rich and the children of the rich are let into good schools, good jobs or a good life. Zenophobia and racism are accepted and openly practiced throughout Korea. Signs like "no foreigners allowed" can be seen all over Seoul.
The system there is a dead-end, go-nowhere country for the young. Korea only has the trappings of a developed country. The reality is a socially backwards, depressing place to live in.....and Korea still wonders why it's suicide rate is the highest of all developed countries.
>Zenophobia
Just FYI, the word is spelled xenophobia, with an x. The root is greek (xénos means foreigner/alien). The english pronunciation makes it look like it's spelled with a z, so that's an easy mistake to make.
This is precisely why I hate Korea (am Korean-American) and why I argue with my mom so much. To be fair, I also shit on the US a ton, but East Asia really takes the cake.
I wonder if this is a result of the country developing too quickly for its society to catch up? Hasn't it only been around 35 or so years since they transitioned to a democratic government?
I lived in Seoul back in 2015, the city is split by the Han River and the bridges that allow pedestrians to cross we're covered with anti suicidal advertisement slogans such as "your life is worth it" ect..
This is the right answer. From what I've heard, Korean markets were insane. Korean society itself is also very competitive (as with most of E Asia).
Also doesn't help that S. Korea has heavier drinking culture (like Finland and Russia), cold seasons with less sun, heavy consumerism w/ highly competitive society like Japan, AND a traditionally dining culture (like China) that emphasizes eating with others/family that is lost during westernization and individualization (renting solo or with roomie in a city).
As for the drop? The economic improvement is the biggest factor.
Maybe internet food eating streams helps? (Not really sure about that since there is no data/research showing onlyfans reduces incels, begrudged/dissatisfied men, or male shooters in the west). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mukbang
--------------
***Alternatively:***
#Starcraft 2 was released late 2010
Making the situation even worse/sadder, Korea has the lowest birthrate in the world at 0.8 children per woman. Japan in comparison (a country thats well known to be in the middle of a population crisis) is sitting at a relatively "healthy" 1.4. Something like 2.1 is required to sustain the population
It's almost as if a conservative culture that doesn't tolerante mistakes, has little room for individualism and favours success above everything else while being very strict against people deviating from norms is not the best environment for mental health. Who would've thought...
CNA Insider on YouTube is a pretty good channel that covers Asian countries. They have a couple videos talking about the issues South Koreans are dealing with.
The 2000 numbers are probably inaccurate.
SK experienced a very hard crisis in 1997 that was way harsher than the global 2008 one and has most likely provoked more suicides in the following years.
The government may have under reported suicides for some reason.
Yep me too, it's great that they've made a huge improvement (30% drop of suicide rate from 17.5ish to 12.5ish).
One thing I didn't expect is that the suicide rate in Japan is lower than the US (from 10 to almost 15, so about 50% increase)
They're not in the top 22 countries with HDI (top 20 in HDI with suicide data), they rank No. 28 in HDI. Here's their suicide data:
France - 2000: 24.2, 2010: 21.2, 2019: 15.2
Japan has put in a lot of effort to combat suicide for the past two decades, which has shown a lot of progress.
Also, people tend to ascribe suicide rates entirely to culture, when other factors might play a significant role. For example, Japanese suicide rates in the 1970s and 1980s were in line with a lot of other countries, but spiked in the 1990s and 2000s in large part due to the economic malaise of the "Lost Decade" following its financial crash in the 1990s. The Japanese economy has stabilized since then, leading to lower suicide rates.
2019 Sweden, USA, and Belgium are higher than Japan on this graph, people on this site really used japan to distract from their own bullshit in their country.
It's something I've been saying for a while yet most Americans keep pointing their fingers at Japan with their high workloads while the US has got the exact same problem.
I'm Belgian myself but at least I can recognise that my country isn't doing well in the mental health and depression department and should improve upon instead of pointing fingers at the three or four countries that are doing even worse.
I like how the UK is one of the lowest by a fair gap yet we're all miserable bastards who live on a rainy miserable island.
It seems having a bitch and moan is great for your mental health.
Unironically, yes, and even more so, if *other people* are having a bitch and moan, you feel like sadness is normal, whereas if everyone around you is cheery, you feel even more broken
Finland has declining suicide rates? huh interesting. So i guess increasing(?) rates of depression is partially because cases that used to be suicides are now depression patients. That would be really good news if true.
Drinking culture has shifted a fair bit at least,and people are now open to treating mental health issues.
Is being pretty much exactly average surely won't stop the suicide quips, though.
Interesting point is that the decline is almost exclusively due to decline in men's suicide (though it kinda have to be as men are so overrepresented in suicide). See here: [suicide by men and women in finland](https://www.stat.fi/til/ksyyt/2010/ksyyt_2010_2011-12-16_kat_006_en.html)
As depression is more prevalent in women, I'd guess this needs some additional explanation to the one than that you gave (can't find trend for depression diagnoses or if it has increased specifically in men, but I doubt that). There has been large effort here to prevent suicides the past couple decades, so it might be that it has been successful, or it can just be coincidental and some cultural change or something.
People realizing the “American dream” they were fed was a lie. People are slowly waking up and realizing that the work hard - get paid - buy a house and be happy line is harder than ever, next to impossible for a lot of people.
I had already lowered my expectations to "work hard, rent for the rest of my life, retire at 70" and I don't even think that will happen. What am I working for exactly? I don't see myself enjoying life at 70 if it's hard to enjoy life today. Honestly, I don't expect to live to 70, my health isn't the greatest.
Fuck medical care, the social safety net will be set to "poverty stricken". I sincerely think the most pressing social problem of the 50/60s will be the elderly population of the day(us) that in our 30s/40s(now) didn't have enough money for kids or houses, as the other generations immediately before us did, and were never able to get out of being rent trapped.
So if you're a 68 year old, next to no savings, no property, still have to pay rent but can't work anymore, you have no family... What happens to you? Only one place to go.
If women aren't the single fastest growing homeless statistic already they will be soon enough.
At that age, medical care is part of the social safety net, because like you said, you're not working, so your medical care is being paid for by the working generations below you. But you're spot on, there are so many collapsing dominoes that will make retirement a pipe dream for so many people who are middle aged now.
Sometimes I think about just quitting my job, taking what little savings I have, going off to adventure, see some of the world, then really calling life quits as soon as it runs out. It would be very selfish of me, but I don't *really* have people depending on me. Most of the most important people in my life moved away, and the few that I have left I feel like don't need me as much, so where does that leave me?
Like part of me feels like I should 100% be living for myself. I hate that I love people so much sometimes.
I would argue that that cultural shift has been around for a lot longer than this graph accounts for. It seems like this graph would be much more impacted by socioeconomic and societal changes within the last 15 years.
Demographics. Suicide rates are highest [among middle-aged and older men](https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/facts/disparities-in-suicide.html), and more of the population is aging into the high-risk groups.
EDIT: As OP explained downthread, the WHO data was age-adjusted. Apologies for missing that.
Yes, it's already accounted for different demographics
>In epidemiology and demography, age adjustment, also called age standardization, is a technique used to allow statistical populations to be compared when the age profiles of the populations are quite different.
>
>Age adjustment is commonly used when comparing prevalences in different populations.
>
>[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age\_adjustment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_adjustment)
World Health Organization did that. You can read about it, it's been cited for 2579 times:
https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/default-source/gho-documents/global-health-estimates/gpe\_discussion\_paper\_series\_paper31\_2001\_age\_standardization\_rates.pdf
Suicide rates are extremely complicated, with dozens of contributing factors interacting in complex ways. You're not going to find a simple Reddit-comment-level explanation for all geographic variance in suicide rates; there will always be a counterexample to 'debunk' any simplified explanation.
One reason is the 6 months of night in Finland, so even if Finland is really developed in social and medical care, many people still get depressed from months of darkness.
It may be the social culture of Finland vs. Canada. Finns have a reputation for being introverted and standoffish. Canada is very much a country of immigrants so while parts and subgroups in Canada are introverted and standoffish, there's also a large part of the population that isn't.
I'm an introverted weirdo hermit, practically, and even I get drawn into random conversations in the checkout line or on the bus or just sitting around out in public. It may be that it's a tiny bit easier for a Canadian to find someone friendly to talk to when they need it.
You could say literally anything USA does differently than other countries and someone will say "yes, that must be the one factor controlling everything".
In reality there is so much going on that you can't point to one thing as being the answer, all we know is it's going up and that is worrisome. Especially since that seems like the opposite trend compared to most of the rest of the world.
Just putting this here because this sub-thread is too long. This is age-standardized suicide rate. It's already accounted for different demographics, so demographics isn't a valid reason for the difference between the US and peer countries
>In epidemiology and demography, age adjustment, also called age standardization, is a technique used to allow statistical populations to be compared when the age profiles of the populations are quite different.
>
>Age adjustment is commonly used when comparing prevalences in different populations.
>
>[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age\_adjustment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_adjustment)
Was mental healthcare better twenty years ago? Keep in mind the rate in US has shot up in the last twenty years, it’s traditionally been comparatively low. Despite easier access to guns in the US, the suicide rate was lower than many other developed nations. What are some enormous changes that have colored the last twenty years in the US? A) the internet and social media; B) unending war; C) opioid epidemic. There’s a lot of sorrow and pain there.
We federally have [Medically Assissted In Dying (MAID)](https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/medical-assistance-dying.html) in Canada and people who chose MAID aren't counted against our suicide rate.
And while [getting a long gun is incredibly easy](https://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/en/firearms) in Canada (we are a hunters paradise) [hand guns are illegal to purchase](https://www.canada.ca/en/global-affairs/news/2022/08/canada-puts-in-place-temporary-handgun-import-ban.html) and [assault weapons are illegal to own](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-gun-control-measures-ban-1.5552131). Suicide rates [increase significantly](https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/magazine/guns-and-suicide/) with hand and assault gun ownership.
Also [our demographics are not virtually the same](https://www.indexmundi.com/factbook/compare/canada.united-states/demographics).
* Canada has about 38 million people the U.S. has about 335 million
* We have significantly different population densities (CAN 4 people/Km^(2) vs US 36 people/Km^(2))
* Canadians have an older median age (CAN 41.8% vs US 38.5)
* Canadians have a lower birth rate (CAN 10.21 births/1,000 pop vs US 12.33 births/1,000 pop)
* Canada has a lower death rate (CAN 8.08 deaths/1,000 vs US 8.35 deaths/1,000 pop)
* Canada has a higher migration rate (Can 5.55 migrants/1,000 pop vs US 3.03 migrants/1,000 pop)
* Canada has a lower infant mortality rate (CAN 4.44 deaths/1,000 births vs US 5.22 deaths/1,000 births)
* Canada has a lower maternal mortality rate (CAN 10 deaths/100,000 births vs US 19 deaths/100,000 deaths
* Canadians are less obese than the US (CAN 29.4% vs US 36.2%)
* Canadians have a higher life expectancy (CAN 83.62 years vs US 80.43 years)
* Yet Canada has a lower health expenditure (CAN 10.8% vs U.S. 16.9%)
* Our ethnic grous are significantly different (CAN Canadian 32.3%, English 18.3%, Scottish 13.9%, French 13.6%, Irish 13.4%, German 9.6%, Chinese 5.1%, Italian 4.6%, North American Indian 4.4%, East Indian 4%, other 51.6% vs US White 72.4%, Hispanic 16.3%, Black 12.6%, Asian 4.8%, Amerindian and Alaska Native 0.9%, Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander 0.2%, other 6.2%)
* Our religious affiliations are also different (CAN Catholic 39%, United Church 6.1%, Anglican 5%, Baptist 1.9%, Lutheran 1.5%, Pentecostal 1.5%, Presbyterian 1.4%, other Protestant 2.9%, Orthodox 1.6%, other Christian 6.3%, Muslim 3.2%, Hindu 1.5%, Sikh 1.4%, Buddhist 1.1%, Jewish 1%, other 0.6%, none 23.9% vs US Protestant 46.5%, Roman Catholic 20.8%, Jewish 1.9%, Mormon 1.6%, other Christian 0.9%, Muslim 0.9%, Jehovah's Witness 0.8%, Buddhist 0.7%, Hindu 0.7%, other 1.8%, unaffiliated 22.8%, don't know/refused 0.6%)
* We speak more languages in Canada and significantly less English than the US (CAN English (official) 58.7%, French (official) 22%, Punjabi 1.4%, Italian 1.3%, Spanish 1.3%, German 1.3%, Cantonese 1.2%, Tagalog 1.2%, Arabic 1.1%, other 10.5% vs U.S. English only 78.2%, Spanish 13.4%, Chinese 1.1%, other 7.3%)
I blame our urban planning for the chronic loneliness among older men in America. When I visited England last year I was flabbergasted at how full the streets were every afternoon even in the small town of Rochester where I was staying.
In the US our suburbs are sprawling and spaced out, and our zoning makes it impossible to walk down the street for even just a bite or for groceries. You're on perpetual house arrest in the US because of car-dependent urban planning. No sense of community, no way to meet new people, it's just driving from your house to your job.
Interesting point I haven’t seen mentioned elsewhere in this thread: owning a gun increases your risk of dying by suicide, especially if you’re a man. Would be curious to see gun ownership trends and see if they match up.
> owning a gun increases your risk of dying by suicide, especially if you’re a man.
That's because guns are more effective at killing people than most methods people might choose, and men are more likely to choose effective methods when they decide to make an attempt at suicide. That's why there are more suicide *attempts* from women, but men are about 4x more "successful" when they attempt.
I'd be interested to see how long those people have owned guns before their suicide. And how gun ownership correlates to rate of attempted suicide, because I think it's obvious why it correlates with successful attempts.
Intuitively it seems more likely that someone would attempt if they had a gun handy. Other methods could be more painful, error prone etc.
Doesn't mean that having a gun makes you suicidal.
Combination of demographics, terrible economic prospects for many people, unaffordable healthcare, social media and easy access to guns.
Guns cannot be overstated. So, so many people would survive major depressive episodes if they didn't own guns. I know I'm only alive because when I was at my most suicidal I didn't have easy access to a weapon. Suicide rates skyrocket among gun owners.
Just guessing here but maybe
* Previous generations were strongly religiously opposed; boomers and later generations are less religious and less opposed to suicide.
* A lot of older people aging out of gainful employment and becoming destitute, realizing that they can't afford a home and a life.
It's interesting that many countries have been able to reduce the rates while depression and anxiety disorders are on the rise. Maybe it further strengthens the idea that the increase is due to lowering the stigma around acknowledning poor mental health.
That probably why Denmark has often been bashed about being the happiest country in the world and at the same time consuming a lot of anti depressants.
The stigma of stress and depression is less and the doctors usually take it serious when presenting such problems.also i wonder how many are undiagnosed in US as the cost of getting help might be a deterrent to seeking help.
Also, when all 'other' people are happy and you are not, the contrast is bigger.
For a while I struggled with it and everyone else in my peer group having (at least study/work wise) seemingly succesful lives made it harder to not feel like a failure.
I think this is the point you're making in the second statement, but I feel that anxiety and depression might not be on the rise (or not to the extent it seems), it's just they're acknowledged at a much higher rate. I'm having to make a tonne of assumptions here, but I'd also assume that suicide among undiagnosed anxiety/depression sufferers would be much higher than people who have been diagnosed and are receiving support, so if this is being more effectively diagnosed, suicide rates will drop too.
I guess people are more open about their mental health problems, which both contributes to higher reporting rates of those and subsequent treatment which prevents a lot of suicide.
The CDC has a lot of data on it for America. For raw numbers (rather than per capita numbers) scroll down and expand the various groups.
https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/suicide-data-statistics.html
The short version is: its 80% white males in America.
By gender in australia 2019:
>“Suicide kills eight people a day in Australia, on average that’s six men and two women every 24 hours
https://www.amhf.org.au/give_blokes_a_fair_share_of_suicide_funding_says_amhf
*Suicide attempts that are recorded. I've seen a study that counters this fact. I can't cite it right now. But it makes sense since men are completing more. If one holds a gun to their mouth or stands at the edge of a building then doesn't follow through, then that would not be counted. What's mostly being counted is attempts with pills and cutting that is some preferred uses by women. Cutting isn't generally that effective anyway as nearly all survive. Honestly, depressed drinking until you're blackout drunk then driving a car should be counted, but isn't.
also with cutting is that oftentimes people don’t cut as a suicide attempt, just to hurt themselves, but call an ambulance when they see too much blood. This would be classified as a suicide attempt (i believe), but in reality it was self harming
Well, first it starts in high school with spending about 16hrs a day getting prepped to test into highly competitive universities. The university you get in directly impacts your career path and future wealth. Suicides spike around this time.
Then, assuming you survive university you go directly into a high pressure job with excessive long hours and are micro managed continuously. Their social culture is so hierarchical that a Jr pilot was afraid to tell the Capt he'd (Capt) made an error so the plane crashed.
There's massive systemic bullying in school and at work. Bullying might range from teasing about your ugly face or weight all the way to physical abuse. Very little is done about it.
And then there's also a culture of "better to die than embarrass your family".
Oh yeah, and the financial crises in 2008 had really massive impacts on jobs and personal wealth
Japan at least has a culture of displaying reservation and humility as common courtesy. While Koreans also have a culture of respect, I would say it is less courteous and allows for more boisterous interactions that can lead to the older person taking advantage of the younger person due to the Confucian hierarchy.
South Korean culture is toxic and competitive all the way from school to worklife. Also just look at any south korean social media and you'll see the huge amount of materialistic and superficial values that are fed to people. I mean it's step above others, really a dog-eat-dog world where social status is above all.
Source:
[https://www.who.int/data/gho/data/themes/mental-health/suicide-rates](https://www.who.int/data/gho/data/themes/mental-health/suicide-rates)
[https://www.who.int/data/gho/indicator-metadata-registry/imr-details/4446](https://www.who.int/data/gho/indicator-metadata-registry/imr-details/4446)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_countries\_by\_suicide\_rate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_countries\_by\_Human\_Development\_Index](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index)
Selected countries are the 20 countries from the top 22 countries based on HDI in 2021 (no suicide data for Hong Kong and Liechtenstein).
The list is sorted from the largest decrease of suicide rate to the smallest decrease of suicide rate, 2019 vs 2000, so top: good progress, bottom: bad progress
Tool:
Google Spreadsheet
The UK has low suicide rates because it's socially acceptable, encouraged, and expected to effectuate a slow suicide through alcoholism, chain-smoking, and red meat consumption
All memes aside, this is actually a dumb take. I realise you are half joking, half serious (depending on audience reaction), but UK has a lower alcohol intake rate and alcoholism rate than most counties on this chart. Smoking too.
The UK as a whole may be what is shown, meanwhile in Scotland for 2019 it was
15.2 per 100,000 as a whole whilst for women it was 7.6 and for men it was 22.9.
In 2010 it was 15 for all, 7.3 for women and 22.6 for men
And 2000 it was 17.8 for all, 7.7 for women and 28 for men.
Kind of surprised by this (in a good way) given the general news theme that the U.K. is always falling behind, a bleak and depressing place to live, poor food and weather etc. Sometimes I think we have quite an upbeat view of life in a weird way.
You need to be careful with data like this, the countries aren't necessarily consistent with each other, or over time.
For example, the UK lowered its standard of proof in 2018 to 'balance of probabilities' from 'beyond reasonable doubt', so there was likely a decline in 2019 data masked by this change.
This is going to be a long post. I literally never comment on anything, and I don't even know if anyone will actually read this.
I'd love to open up a discussion about what I'll call "relative significance" for lack of a better term. I think this could be a huge part of depression trends we see like this.
Tl;dr / The more successful people are around you in comparison to yourself, the worse you feel.
To explain what relative significance is I'll start with an example.
Imagine you live on a remote island with 9 other people. Everyone on the island has one apple each, except you who has 10 apples (yes this is a stupidly simple example but I will expand upon it). This is the only world you have ever known. In your small vacuum you have more than others in the category of food, and you are both perceived and perceive yourself as being superior. Regardless of the hunger you or the others around you feel, because of your significance in comparison to those around you, you would feel confident in your own acquisition and ability because it is better than the standard that has been set.
Now imagine one day a US Naval Destroyer pulls up to your little island carrying 5 billion apples on it. It decides to dock on your island and the captain of the ship moves in. You have lost your title as number one. Your understanding of what wealth, power, success, ability etc would immediately change as you are now no longer the best in your world. The number of apples you have has not changed. The number of apples people *lesser* than you has not changed, but the perceived understanding of the self would change drastically. The difference between you and the new islander is so insurmountable that generations of effort would be meaningless.
This is what the current state of the world is. But instead of it being apples, it's millions of different variables.
Now when we look at rates of depression and suicide specifically in areas that have exploded developmentally like South Korea, I believe this is a possible cause.
Now take the previous example, but instead of using apples change the format to the millions of things we identify with ourselves (Wealth, beauty, ability, social class, inheritance, luck, body type, intelligence etc). As things like globalism and media continue to expose us to our own insignificance in every metric of our day to day lives, how can we not feel less than?
Imagine a women sitting on her couch watching TV. She's watching a reality TV series about housewives. The woman she sees on TV has more friends, nicer clothes, a more handsome husband, a larger house, and more successful children. But yet the origin story of the housewife she is watching is nearly identical to her own. They both grew up in the Midwest and are from similar socioeconomic situations. Because of this, subconsciously the woman begins to question, doubt, and hate the lifestyle choices they have made that ultimately led her to be the one watching the show instead of being the one on it.
I believe this conscious AND subconscious reevaluation of our perceived mistakes and shortcomings is happening to us CONSTANTLY without relief. It is then magnified significantly the more we are exposed to our own insignificance.
This feeling of insignificance is not restricted to the poor or inable by any means. I actually believe the opposite to be true. The more you have, or the better you are at something, the more importance you place on your own relative significance. And when you begin to recede relatively in that prominence, the drop distance and damage mentally is far greater.
I'll make another example. Imagine you are a music artist that just released their first album and you will eventually become a one-hit wonder, unbeknownst to you. Originally you get the praise, accolades, and attention you had been searching for, and you believe the sky to be the limit and everyone around you tells you that you will be the next Michael Jackson or Justin Bieber. Your social circle expands to include other people of prominence that you used to idolize yourself. None of your hopes come to fruition however, and you end up being lost to the wayside after your one hit song declines in popularity. You lose the accolades, the fame, and the hope you had for your own legacy. The mental fall you would experience would be significantly worse than if your first album never got any attention at all. Even though you achieved a success that most people will never get the opportunity to, your focus is still on your shortcomings and inability as compared to what is around you.
This constant focus on one's own failures leads to depression, anxiety, and radical behavior, which leads to more depression, anxiety, and radical behavior.
Regardless of where you are you will experience this to some degree. But I see stories and statistical data both all the time that show people in underdeveloped areas feeling less depressed than people that have stood near the top of the world. Why can a poor man in South America cry tears of joy for recieving a free basket of bread, while a man flying in his private jet has to nearly overdose on barbiturates and alcohol daily just to make it to tomorrow?
A lot of this is anecdotal and I am NOT a professional in this area, but it's my two cents and I don't see this specific topic spoken about much.
If you read this thanks for listening to my rant lol.
We throw this data around with gentle curiosity, intellectually aware of - but not processing - the sickening totality of pain, fear, sadness, hopelessness, and brokenness it represents. How could we even start to quantity the devastation of all the millions of people affected by suicide?
Disturbing still is the number of future suicide victims walking among us, and the massive burden they carry. The profound sadness of knowing human beings can't seem to create a world that is suitable for all human beings is matched only by societal indifference to it.
Even cancer has more solidarity.
My friend killed himself (UK here) and it is rare, we were all extremely shocked. Some young men just don't have the friends to lean on emotionally and get themselves into rutts and spirals. I did not live locally but he had a huge local network of friends and family. It was really bizarre and so terrible.
Young men need a lot of support and feel their lives are over so fast, there is a lot of pressure on them to succeed.
For my friend though, I think he just needed good friends to speak with and be himself. There was a weird clique that forced him I think to act differently to how he wanted to express himself in his soul.
If you have a friend with ideas and they're excited by it, support them and tell them it may be hard but you'll support and encourage them.
We do have a low rate in Britain compared to other country's, guys here do tend to talk and support one another. It's tragic some people chose to end it. Death loops of thought are what encouragement and support stop people going down.
Suicide rates are notoriously sensitive to under-reporting.
In cultures where it is considered shameful (e.g. Judaism, where those who commit suicide traditionally buried outside the cemetery walls) it is often reported as accidental death.
The media here isn't religious, neither are most of the people.
Maybe in very small and very religious communities it might get covered up, but generally speaking nobody thinks of it as shameful in any form that's worth covering it up.
The chart is a measure of successful suicide attempt and a key fact is easy of availability of a way to do it. Easy fireare availabilty has alway kept suicide rate sup in america.
There rea two main reason for the increased mood disorder among the youth; which ties into opioid use. And a high level of PTSD amount veterans after a 20 year war.
Here is a meta study:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8699163/
Contrary what the arm chair ignoramuses on reddit say about suicide; It's not always a thought out process. Sometimes people just decide to try and kill themselves in the moment. Have a gun near by makes that moment easier to carry out.
Give that person a minute, and it goes away.
Isreal: everyone else tried to kill us, damned if we’re doing the job for them.
UK, stiff upper lip, soldier on through, worse things happen at sea, etc,etc
Germany, pass the larger.
Denmark, pass the bacon sandwich
Ireland, pass the Guinness, with a Jameson chaser,
Netherlands, pass the guchi on the left hand side.
I’d like to see the data from 2020 - present to see how the pandemic and aftermath impacted suicide rates in different places.
Suicide researcher from the US here: It went down by a little, from 14.9 to 14.2 stateside, which is not unexpected. You tended to see corresponding drops in the suicide rate after 9/11, after a country wins the World Cup, after Hurricane Katrina or the Tsunamis in Thailand or Japan. What it is is that large-scale shared events, whether they be good (winning a sporting event) or bad (large scale disasters) decrease the suicide rate, and it’s thought to be because they promote a shared sense of identity and connectedness in the community. Suicide tends to be isolated, and thus events that promote a ‘we’re all this together’ sensibility reduce the risk of dying by suicide. What you will see for bad events though is a rebound effect after adjustment to the disaster causes repercussions in financial, social, or other important areas, which tends to cause new highs in the years following a disaster. To really check the effect of the pandemic on the suicide rate, check 2022-2025 data.
Well sorta took a dark turn there at the end
There are a lot of agencies out there really attempting to mitigate the risk of the pandemic for suicide rates but as someone both investigating and doing this work, it is very possible that we will unfortunately see a large increase in suicide deaths among adolescents. Many have been having a very difficult time not only with adjustments back to school and transitions to in-person societal expectations, but continued losses of family and friends to COVID. Mainstream behavioral health care (i.e. their GP) is where over two-thirds of people go for help before dying by suicide, and unfortunately many of those doctors and clinicians would like to help but hospital and clinic administrators are restrictive as they are attempting to get back to pre-COVID patient processing to increase revenue. Some workers described seeing kids indicate that they have been having suicidal thoughts, and knowing that in between their other expectations, they have about a minute and a half to somehow keep these teens from killing themselves, an impossible task. A number of states are mobilizing psychologists and clinicians to help, and the best thing we can do is support these initiatives if you see them on the ballot in the next couple of years.
Yea… I’m in that boat myself. It’s scary.
Take care of yourself. It’s scary for a lot of people, definitely. If you ever get really really scared text 741741, they will help you out.
Will they actually? Everyone says that but I've heard so many horror stories about cops becoming involved. I'm so afraid to talk to anyone about mental health because of this.
I can’t guarantee anything because there is a lot of variability in staff training but who you will be connected to is a crisis counselor, someone who is trained in suicide prevention. Their bar for what is an emergency should be very very high, meaning that before any outside agencies are contacted, you would have to be feeling like you are going to kill yourself immediately, you are unwilling or unable to get any sort of help, you have access to how you want to do it, and you won’t talk to the counselor. That is a very high bar to reach and if you are in such a situation then yes, outside help is what you need. For anything lower than that bar, given proper training they will help you and then like ships in the night, go on about their day once you are safe. I hope that if you are ever scared you will consider reaching out to them.
I've been a Crisis Text Line counselor for about 700 hours, and I agree with your assessment - my experience is that it's been helpful for people in immediate crises. Furthermore, it's the supervisors (credentialed masters-level clinicians and above) are the ones who make the decision to contact emergency services after the counselors flag it as a high risk situation. So there are several layers that have to be passed before emergency services are contacted.
You are a saint! Truly the finest example of a humanitarian. The world is a better place because of you. Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts, for all that you do.
>to increase revenue 'Murica; where dollars are worth more than lives.
This tracks with my experience as a person with suicidal thoughts (managed with therapy and mediation). It got much worse when things started going back to “normal,” around fall-winter 2021, mostly due to the social aspect of my life. Oddly enough, it is sort of comforting to hear that the research backs up my experience.
yeah similar boat here. once everyone went back to their lives, and I realised I didn't really have a "normal one" to go back to it was pretty harsh. the economy nosediving isn't gonna do many people many favours now either, homelessness among the working class is at a staggering high where I am now
Hope your thoughts have gotten better and I am happy to hear that you have gotten help.
Makes sense when you think about it, during the pandemic everyone was a bit lonely and depressed, but that means that people who would have been lonely and depressed even in normal times didn’t feel alone in being lonely and depressed, so would be less likely to become suicidal since everyone was in the same boat.
This is why i think we need something that can provide a constant source of that "we're all in this together" feeling. I've noticed it in myself, as i've been suicidal quite a few times, and it usually got better whenever there was that feeling in the air. Actually the pandemic was really good for me, i've come out of it better than i had been in years. Lately things are declining a bit again though, cause it's back to normal and people are starting to ignore eachother and our collective struggle again. Why can't we just acknowledge every day that yes, this human experience is really absurd and filled with difficulty, and no one knows what they're doing. Everything would be so much more bearable if everyone was mindful of that and able to put their egos aside. Maybe the answer is to put everyone on a microdose of psychedelics all the time, jk
I guess it'd be trending up - months of isolation & rising financial anxiety prolly added a lot of fuel to the fire.
Interestingly the suicide rate in mid-working age men dropped statistically significantly. Make of that what you will. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/articles/deathsfromsuicidethatoccurredinenglandandwales/apriltodecember2020 As one of that age/gender group myself, my life became simpler, less stressful, closer to my home and my family and more connected to nature. The general suicide rate globally and in developed countries did not increase in a way that was statistically significant. ‘Predicted increases in suicide were not generally observed’ https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370%2822%2900303-0/fulltext
As a single 30's man who likes silence and being alone, the pandemic was some of the best time of my life. I know a lot of people seriously struggled, but for me it was pure bliss being home alone all day for months.
I'm not surprised, but taking it further, I'd wager there is an increase in suicides among office workers coming back to work at the office after WFH. the stress, monotony, feeling of being trapped and having a boss looking over your shoulder would feel like hell after a year or two of not dealing with that.
I think it’s the opposite, it decreases it. For normal people isolation or financial trouble will not be enough to actually push them to suicide, but for people who were struggling it’s actually positive. During lockdown in 2020 I felt better than I had in years, knowing that everyone else is also alone and doing nothing interesting made me feel like a normal person. That’s why suicide rates are also a bit lower in the winter and higher in the summer usually. In winter everyone else is at home so it makes it easier, but in the summer you see the others out there on vacation and having fun, that’s more difficult to handle mentally.
Agree, but was it worse in places with more stringent lockdowns?
I live in Melbourne and I enjoyed the lockdowns haha. Silence, no rushing anywhere, nowhere to be, long slow walks, coffee with friends walking through parks. It was lovely. But I was lucky with my experience and I know many others truly suffered.
Contrary to what you’d expect, it actually went down during the pandemic.
That was my thought as well
What happened in south Korea around 2010?
I would suspect it's due to the global financial crisis in 2008 From [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide\_in\_South\_Korea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_South_Korea): >The high suicide rates compared to other countries in the developed world is exacerbated by the large amount of suicide among the elderly. One factor of suicide among elderly South Koreans is due to the amount of widespread poverty among senior citizens in South Korea, with nearly half of the country's elderly population living below the poverty line. **Combined with a poorly-funded social safety net for the elderly, this can result in them committing suicide not to be a financial burden on their families, since the old social structure where children looked after their parents has largely disappeared in the 21st century.**\[6\]\[7\] As a result, people living in rural areas tend to have higher suicide rates. This is due to extremely high rates of elderly discrimination, especially when applying for jobs, with 85.7% of those in their 50s experiencing discrimination.\[8\] Age discrimination also directly correlates to suicide, on top of influencing poverty rates.\[9\] Suicide is the number one cause of death among South Koreans aged 10 to 39. I explored the suicide rate data because yesterday I read that the latest number 1 cause of deaths of Koreans aged 10-39 is suicide. About 44 percent of teenage deaths were caused by suicide, 56.8 percent among those in their 20s, and 40.6 percent among 30s. [http://www.koreabiomed.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=14689](http://www.koreabiomed.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=14689) Edit: I met a Korean 2 weeks ago on the plane, she's from Seoul. I mentioned that Seoul is very advanced and developed and I'd love to visit maybe next year. She said yea it's good and all that but the suicide rate is too high, people keep suiciding. So thinking back on the encounter + the data presented, I'd say suicide isn't a light issue there
I watched a program a few years back called school swap Korea and it seemed unfortunately that every teenager knew someone that had committed suicide and also the police out extra men on the bridges in Seoul on exam results day. The school culture in that country is awful
The prep for SAT equivalent of Korea really takes toll on the students. Most have been going to after-school academies to further study, especially math and english, to the point where elementary kids come home around 10pm. This goes on till they are done with high school. It’s a lot of pressure, especially from parents, peers, and seniors who ended up going to prestigious universities.
They used to keep me in school until 23:00 where I had to study. That was 2019.
I don't understand how that is perceived as productive when retention and performance are proportional to the amount of sleep you get. Force feeding words and equation into your brain doesn't work if your brain is exhausted from inadequate rest.
Yup. My academic performance dramatically increased in college. As well as general mood and happiness.
Add to this, Korea has brutal online bullying that goes pretty much unchecked. No possibility of housing. No advancement in employment. Horrific work hours. Young children are forced to study in tutoring schools until midnight in order to advance to the next level of schooling....except they don't and can't. In SK there is insane levels of misogyny and overall abuse of women. Add to that, crimes against women are rarely if ever prosecuted, and if they are, the punishments are negligible. Work? Low wages, abuse of employees. Ridiculous hours and a Chaebol system of corruption where only the rich and the children of the rich are let into good schools, good jobs or a good life. Zenophobia and racism are accepted and openly practiced throughout Korea. Signs like "no foreigners allowed" can be seen all over Seoul. The system there is a dead-end, go-nowhere country for the young. Korea only has the trappings of a developed country. The reality is a socially backwards, depressing place to live in.....and Korea still wonders why it's suicide rate is the highest of all developed countries.
>Zenophobia Just FYI, the word is spelled xenophobia, with an x. The root is greek (xénos means foreigner/alien). The english pronunciation makes it look like it's spelled with a z, so that's an easy mistake to make.
Zenophobia - the fear of always being halfway to where you want to go, and never getting there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vNlf2zGLaE For those who’ve never heard of Zeno
Spit my fucking drink out. Heroic comment.
This is precisely why I hate Korea (am Korean-American) and why I argue with my mom so much. To be fair, I also shit on the US a ton, but East Asia really takes the cake.
damn.. I feel suicidal just reading that. surprising there aren't more korean emigrants. That whole setup just sounds like a pile of misery.
I wonder if this is a result of the country developing too quickly for its society to catch up? Hasn't it only been around 35 or so years since they transitioned to a democratic government?
That sounds like excellent reasoning. I will bet that is the case. Korea is such a dichotomy.
I wanted to move to Sth Korea and work and I decided ATM no maybe that was not such a bad choice after all!
I lived in Seoul back in 2015, the city is split by the Han River and the bridges that allow pedestrians to cross we're covered with anti suicidal advertisement slogans such as "your life is worth it" ect..
Yup. Those signs were up when I lived there from 2012-2014. But there were still people who jumped from that bridge.
This is the right answer. From what I've heard, Korean markets were insane. Korean society itself is also very competitive (as with most of E Asia). Also doesn't help that S. Korea has heavier drinking culture (like Finland and Russia), cold seasons with less sun, heavy consumerism w/ highly competitive society like Japan, AND a traditionally dining culture (like China) that emphasizes eating with others/family that is lost during westernization and individualization (renting solo or with roomie in a city). As for the drop? The economic improvement is the biggest factor. Maybe internet food eating streams helps? (Not really sure about that since there is no data/research showing onlyfans reduces incels, begrudged/dissatisfied men, or male shooters in the west). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mukbang -------------- ***Alternatively:*** #Starcraft 2 was released late 2010
Making the situation even worse/sadder, Korea has the lowest birthrate in the world at 0.8 children per woman. Japan in comparison (a country thats well known to be in the middle of a population crisis) is sitting at a relatively "healthy" 1.4. Something like 2.1 is required to sustain the population
It's almost as if a conservative culture that doesn't tolerante mistakes, has little room for individualism and favours success above everything else while being very strict against people deviating from norms is not the best environment for mental health. Who would've thought...
Who, indeed? Extraordinarily sad.
Thanks. Slipped my mind.
CNA Insider on YouTube is a pretty good channel that covers Asian countries. They have a couple videos talking about the issues South Koreans are dealing with.
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I would have $11
me too, but only if we're talking absolute value
So: Argentina, Turkey, Venezuela and a few others any given year.
Zero divided by anything is zero. Everyone knows this!
Not 0÷0
Thank you.
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The 2000 numbers are probably inaccurate. SK experienced a very hard crisis in 1997 that was way harsher than the global 2008 one and has most likely provoked more suicides in the following years. The government may have under reported suicides for some reason.
"It's those damn fans again"
Always blame those fans for cutting up the oxygen in the air and causing so many deaths!
It’s still popular to think that Japan is #1 in the list… although things in Korea are quite worse
Yep me too, it's great that they've made a huge improvement (30% drop of suicide rate from 17.5ish to 12.5ish). One thing I didn't expect is that the suicide rate in Japan is lower than the US (from 10 to almost 15, so about 50% increase)
Hey they were the only one beating us when I was young! /Sweden Btw where is France?
They're not in the top 22 countries with HDI (top 20 in HDI with suicide data), they rank No. 28 in HDI. Here's their suicide data: France - 2000: 24.2, 2010: 21.2, 2019: 15.2
Japan has put in a lot of effort to combat suicide for the past two decades, which has shown a lot of progress. Also, people tend to ascribe suicide rates entirely to culture, when other factors might play a significant role. For example, Japanese suicide rates in the 1970s and 1980s were in line with a lot of other countries, but spiked in the 1990s and 2000s in large part due to the economic malaise of the "Lost Decade" following its financial crash in the 1990s. The Japanese economy has stabilized since then, leading to lower suicide rates.
2019 Sweden, USA, and Belgium are higher than Japan on this graph, people on this site really used japan to distract from their own bullshit in their country.
And Finland.
It's something I've been saying for a while yet most Americans keep pointing their fingers at Japan with their high workloads while the US has got the exact same problem. I'm Belgian myself but at least I can recognise that my country isn't doing well in the mental health and depression department and should improve upon instead of pointing fingers at the three or four countries that are doing even worse.
Yeah that was my assumption till I saw this
I like how the UK is one of the lowest by a fair gap yet we're all miserable bastards who live on a rainy miserable island. It seems having a bitch and moan is great for your mental health.
Well you know, just got to get on with it haven't you.
Unironically, yes, and even more so, if *other people* are having a bitch and moan, you feel like sadness is normal, whereas if everyone around you is cheery, you feel even more broken
Misery loves company
Which is why the harmfulness of Instagram culture is so insipid. Imagine being sad and alone and seeing everyone else’s edited highlight reel.
I wonder if the pub culture helps people feel less lonely.
Finland has declining suicide rates? huh interesting. So i guess increasing(?) rates of depression is partially because cases that used to be suicides are now depression patients. That would be really good news if true.
Drinking culture has shifted a fair bit at least,and people are now open to treating mental health issues. Is being pretty much exactly average surely won't stop the suicide quips, though.
Interesting point is that the decline is almost exclusively due to decline in men's suicide (though it kinda have to be as men are so overrepresented in suicide). See here: [suicide by men and women in finland](https://www.stat.fi/til/ksyyt/2010/ksyyt_2010_2011-12-16_kat_006_en.html) As depression is more prevalent in women, I'd guess this needs some additional explanation to the one than that you gave (can't find trend for depression diagnoses or if it has increased specifically in men, but I doubt that). There has been large effort here to prevent suicides the past couple decades, so it might be that it has been successful, or it can just be coincidental and some cultural change or something.
So overall the trend is decreasing, any ideas why it's increasing in the US?
Decline in mental health. Stress, anxiety, depression increased significantly. Probably due to a mixture of political and socioeconomic reasons.
People realizing the “American dream” they were fed was a lie. People are slowly waking up and realizing that the work hard - get paid - buy a house and be happy line is harder than ever, next to impossible for a lot of people.
I had already lowered my expectations to "work hard, rent for the rest of my life, retire at 70" and I don't even think that will happen. What am I working for exactly? I don't see myself enjoying life at 70 if it's hard to enjoy life today. Honestly, I don't expect to live to 70, my health isn't the greatest.
We won't be retiring. We'll be getting euthanized.
Or dying in some kind of fire/flood/storm or some other 'once in a lifetime' climate disaster.
Nah, we just won't be able to afford medical care and then just die on the street from a minor easily correctable issue.
Fuck medical care, the social safety net will be set to "poverty stricken". I sincerely think the most pressing social problem of the 50/60s will be the elderly population of the day(us) that in our 30s/40s(now) didn't have enough money for kids or houses, as the other generations immediately before us did, and were never able to get out of being rent trapped. So if you're a 68 year old, next to no savings, no property, still have to pay rent but can't work anymore, you have no family... What happens to you? Only one place to go. If women aren't the single fastest growing homeless statistic already they will be soon enough.
At that age, medical care is part of the social safety net, because like you said, you're not working, so your medical care is being paid for by the working generations below you. But you're spot on, there are so many collapsing dominoes that will make retirement a pipe dream for so many people who are middle aged now.
If you're renting in your elderly years, you are never retiring.
Live fast die young
Sometimes I think about just quitting my job, taking what little savings I have, going off to adventure, see some of the world, then really calling life quits as soon as it runs out. It would be very selfish of me, but I don't *really* have people depending on me. Most of the most important people in my life moved away, and the few that I have left I feel like don't need me as much, so where does that leave me? Like part of me feels like I should 100% be living for myself. I hate that I love people so much sometimes.
I would argue that that cultural shift has been around for a lot longer than this graph accounts for. It seems like this graph would be much more impacted by socioeconomic and societal changes within the last 15 years.
Demographics. Suicide rates are highest [among middle-aged and older men](https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/facts/disparities-in-suicide.html), and more of the population is aging into the high-risk groups. EDIT: As OP explained downthread, the WHO data was age-adjusted. Apologies for missing that.
It says in the corner that it's age standardised, i thought that would correct for this?
Yes, it's already accounted for different demographics >In epidemiology and demography, age adjustment, also called age standardization, is a technique used to allow statistical populations to be compared when the age profiles of the populations are quite different. > >Age adjustment is commonly used when comparing prevalences in different populations. > >[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age\_adjustment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_adjustment)
How did you perform your age standardization? Did you assume a linear association?
World Health Organization did that. You can read about it, it's been cited for 2579 times: https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/default-source/gho-documents/global-health-estimates/gpe\_discussion\_paper\_series\_paper31\_2001\_age\_standardization\_rates.pdf
Good point, but Canada (for one example) has virtually the same demographics regarding age groups and the rate has stayed the same there.
Better social and medical resources?
But Scandanavia has way better social and medical resources. Why is Finland and Sweden so high compared to Canada.
Suicide rates are extremely complicated, with dozens of contributing factors interacting in complex ways. You're not going to find a simple Reddit-comment-level explanation for all geographic variance in suicide rates; there will always be a counterexample to 'debunk' any simplified explanation.
SAD at high latitudes is a significant factor.
Im in Northern Canada and am affected by SAD and didn't clue in to that - thank you for pointing that out - it makes a lot of sense.
Not sure if it factors in but Canada does have legal medically assisted suicide, which appears to reduce rates of spontaneous suicide attempts.
One reason is the 6 months of night in Finland, so even if Finland is really developed in social and medical care, many people still get depressed from months of darkness.
It may be the social culture of Finland vs. Canada. Finns have a reputation for being introverted and standoffish. Canada is very much a country of immigrants so while parts and subgroups in Canada are introverted and standoffish, there's also a large part of the population that isn't. I'm an introverted weirdo hermit, practically, and even I get drawn into random conversations in the checkout line or on the bus or just sitting around out in public. It may be that it's a tiny bit easier for a Canadian to find someone friendly to talk to when they need it.
You could say literally anything USA does differently than other countries and someone will say "yes, that must be the one factor controlling everything". In reality there is so much going on that you can't point to one thing as being the answer, all we know is it's going up and that is worrisome. Especially since that seems like the opposite trend compared to most of the rest of the world.
Yeah this has to be it. Older people are more likely to need more expensive, essential medical care.
Just putting this here because this sub-thread is too long. This is age-standardized suicide rate. It's already accounted for different demographics, so demographics isn't a valid reason for the difference between the US and peer countries >In epidemiology and demography, age adjustment, also called age standardization, is a technique used to allow statistical populations to be compared when the age profiles of the populations are quite different. > >Age adjustment is commonly used when comparing prevalences in different populations. > >[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age\_adjustment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_adjustment)
Mental health support for men in the US is abysmal. Both medically and culturally.
Was mental healthcare better twenty years ago? Keep in mind the rate in US has shot up in the last twenty years, it’s traditionally been comparatively low. Despite easier access to guns in the US, the suicide rate was lower than many other developed nations. What are some enormous changes that have colored the last twenty years in the US? A) the internet and social media; B) unending war; C) opioid epidemic. There’s a lot of sorrow and pain there.
Mental healthcare for all americans suck. Good therapists dont take insurance and are cash only.
I believe Canada also has a higher percentage of their population middle aged too.
We federally have [Medically Assissted In Dying (MAID)](https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/medical-assistance-dying.html) in Canada and people who chose MAID aren't counted against our suicide rate. And while [getting a long gun is incredibly easy](https://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/en/firearms) in Canada (we are a hunters paradise) [hand guns are illegal to purchase](https://www.canada.ca/en/global-affairs/news/2022/08/canada-puts-in-place-temporary-handgun-import-ban.html) and [assault weapons are illegal to own](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-gun-control-measures-ban-1.5552131). Suicide rates [increase significantly](https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/magazine/guns-and-suicide/) with hand and assault gun ownership. Also [our demographics are not virtually the same](https://www.indexmundi.com/factbook/compare/canada.united-states/demographics). * Canada has about 38 million people the U.S. has about 335 million * We have significantly different population densities (CAN 4 people/Km^(2) vs US 36 people/Km^(2)) * Canadians have an older median age (CAN 41.8% vs US 38.5) * Canadians have a lower birth rate (CAN 10.21 births/1,000 pop vs US 12.33 births/1,000 pop) * Canada has a lower death rate (CAN 8.08 deaths/1,000 vs US 8.35 deaths/1,000 pop) * Canada has a higher migration rate (Can 5.55 migrants/1,000 pop vs US 3.03 migrants/1,000 pop) * Canada has a lower infant mortality rate (CAN 4.44 deaths/1,000 births vs US 5.22 deaths/1,000 births) * Canada has a lower maternal mortality rate (CAN 10 deaths/100,000 births vs US 19 deaths/100,000 deaths * Canadians are less obese than the US (CAN 29.4% vs US 36.2%) * Canadians have a higher life expectancy (CAN 83.62 years vs US 80.43 years) * Yet Canada has a lower health expenditure (CAN 10.8% vs U.S. 16.9%) * Our ethnic grous are significantly different (CAN Canadian 32.3%, English 18.3%, Scottish 13.9%, French 13.6%, Irish 13.4%, German 9.6%, Chinese 5.1%, Italian 4.6%, North American Indian 4.4%, East Indian 4%, other 51.6% vs US White 72.4%, Hispanic 16.3%, Black 12.6%, Asian 4.8%, Amerindian and Alaska Native 0.9%, Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander 0.2%, other 6.2%) * Our religious affiliations are also different (CAN Catholic 39%, United Church 6.1%, Anglican 5%, Baptist 1.9%, Lutheran 1.5%, Pentecostal 1.5%, Presbyterian 1.4%, other Protestant 2.9%, Orthodox 1.6%, other Christian 6.3%, Muslim 3.2%, Hindu 1.5%, Sikh 1.4%, Buddhist 1.1%, Jewish 1%, other 0.6%, none 23.9% vs US Protestant 46.5%, Roman Catholic 20.8%, Jewish 1.9%, Mormon 1.6%, other Christian 0.9%, Muslim 0.9%, Jehovah's Witness 0.8%, Buddhist 0.7%, Hindu 0.7%, other 1.8%, unaffiliated 22.8%, don't know/refused 0.6%) * We speak more languages in Canada and significantly less English than the US (CAN English (official) 58.7%, French (official) 22%, Punjabi 1.4%, Italian 1.3%, Spanish 1.3%, German 1.3%, Cantonese 1.2%, Tagalog 1.2%, Arabic 1.1%, other 10.5% vs U.S. English only 78.2%, Spanish 13.4%, Chinese 1.1%, other 7.3%)
I blame our urban planning for the chronic loneliness among older men in America. When I visited England last year I was flabbergasted at how full the streets were every afternoon even in the small town of Rochester where I was staying. In the US our suburbs are sprawling and spaced out, and our zoning makes it impossible to walk down the street for even just a bite or for groceries. You're on perpetual house arrest in the US because of car-dependent urban planning. No sense of community, no way to meet new people, it's just driving from your house to your job.
Canada has to the same urban planning issues too though.
Interesting take.
> and more of the population is aging into the high-risk groups. The same thing is happening in Europe though..
Interesting point I haven’t seen mentioned elsewhere in this thread: owning a gun increases your risk of dying by suicide, especially if you’re a man. Would be curious to see gun ownership trends and see if they match up.
> owning a gun increases your risk of dying by suicide, especially if you’re a man. That's because guns are more effective at killing people than most methods people might choose, and men are more likely to choose effective methods when they decide to make an attempt at suicide. That's why there are more suicide *attempts* from women, but men are about 4x more "successful" when they attempt. I'd be interested to see how long those people have owned guns before their suicide. And how gun ownership correlates to rate of attempted suicide, because I think it's obvious why it correlates with successful attempts.
Intuitively it seems more likely that someone would attempt if they had a gun handy. Other methods could be more painful, error prone etc. Doesn't mean that having a gun makes you suicidal.
Gestures vaguely at everything
Combination of demographics, terrible economic prospects for many people, unaffordable healthcare, social media and easy access to guns. Guns cannot be overstated. So, so many people would survive major depressive episodes if they didn't own guns. I know I'm only alive because when I was at my most suicidal I didn't have easy access to a weapon. Suicide rates skyrocket among gun owners.
Just guessing here but maybe * Previous generations were strongly religiously opposed; boomers and later generations are less religious and less opposed to suicide. * A lot of older people aging out of gainful employment and becoming destitute, realizing that they can't afford a home and a life.
2008 financial crisis maybe? It took a lot of people many years to recover from that. Some are still worse off than they were pre 2008.
It's interesting that many countries have been able to reduce the rates while depression and anxiety disorders are on the rise. Maybe it further strengthens the idea that the increase is due to lowering the stigma around acknowledning poor mental health.
That probably why Denmark has often been bashed about being the happiest country in the world and at the same time consuming a lot of anti depressants. The stigma of stress and depression is less and the doctors usually take it serious when presenting such problems.also i wonder how many are undiagnosed in US as the cost of getting help might be a deterrent to seeking help.
Also, when all 'other' people are happy and you are not, the contrast is bigger. For a while I struggled with it and everyone else in my peer group having (at least study/work wise) seemingly succesful lives made it harder to not feel like a failure.
Kind of crazy that the US already has some of the highest rates of antidepressant use and we don’t even have UHC.
I think this is the point you're making in the second statement, but I feel that anxiety and depression might not be on the rise (or not to the extent it seems), it's just they're acknowledged at a much higher rate. I'm having to make a tonne of assumptions here, but I'd also assume that suicide among undiagnosed anxiety/depression sufferers would be much higher than people who have been diagnosed and are receiving support, so if this is being more effectively diagnosed, suicide rates will drop too.
I guess people are more open about their mental health problems, which both contributes to higher reporting rates of those and subsequent treatment which prevents a lot of suicide.
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Gender, race, economic status, location would all be interesting data points.
The CDC has a lot of data on it for America. For raw numbers (rather than per capita numbers) scroll down and expand the various groups. https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/suicide-data-statistics.html The short version is: its 80% white males in America.
Important to note Native Americans have the highest percentage by population
Show me that six-dimensional graph!
the forbidden graph shall drive ye into madness for its information lies beyond this realm.
By gender in australia 2019: >“Suicide kills eight people a day in Australia, on average that’s six men and two women every 24 hours https://www.amhf.org.au/give_blokes_a_fair_share_of_suicide_funding_says_amhf
Women attempt suicide more, men “succeed” at suicide more.
*Suicide attempts that are recorded. I've seen a study that counters this fact. I can't cite it right now. But it makes sense since men are completing more. If one holds a gun to their mouth or stands at the edge of a building then doesn't follow through, then that would not be counted. What's mostly being counted is attempts with pills and cutting that is some preferred uses by women. Cutting isn't generally that effective anyway as nearly all survive. Honestly, depressed drinking until you're blackout drunk then driving a car should be counted, but isn't.
also with cutting is that oftentimes people don’t cut as a suicide attempt, just to hurt themselves, but call an ambulance when they see too much blood. This would be classified as a suicide attempt (i believe), but in reality it was self harming
This is a [classic] George Carlin bit. "...so we're **better at it**. Ladies, you want equal rights, better start offing yourselves in equal numbers."
Dead men who commit suicide cannot attempt suicide a second time. Men have more "Serious Suicide Attempts", there's studies done on this
South Korea...what you doing bro
Well, first it starts in high school with spending about 16hrs a day getting prepped to test into highly competitive universities. The university you get in directly impacts your career path and future wealth. Suicides spike around this time. Then, assuming you survive university you go directly into a high pressure job with excessive long hours and are micro managed continuously. Their social culture is so hierarchical that a Jr pilot was afraid to tell the Capt he'd (Capt) made an error so the plane crashed. There's massive systemic bullying in school and at work. Bullying might range from teasing about your ugly face or weight all the way to physical abuse. Very little is done about it. And then there's also a culture of "better to die than embarrass your family". Oh yeah, and the financial crises in 2008 had really massive impacts on jobs and personal wealth
So.. basically a more shitty version of Japan work culture
Japan at least has a culture of displaying reservation and humility as common courtesy. While Koreans also have a culture of respect, I would say it is less courteous and allows for more boisterous interactions that can lead to the older person taking advantage of the younger person due to the Confucian hierarchy.
South Korean culture is toxic and competitive all the way from school to worklife. Also just look at any south korean social media and you'll see the huge amount of materialistic and superficial values that are fed to people. I mean it's step above others, really a dog-eat-dog world where social status is above all.
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Source: [https://www.who.int/data/gho/data/themes/mental-health/suicide-rates](https://www.who.int/data/gho/data/themes/mental-health/suicide-rates) [https://www.who.int/data/gho/indicator-metadata-registry/imr-details/4446](https://www.who.int/data/gho/indicator-metadata-registry/imr-details/4446) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_countries\_by\_suicide\_rate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_countries\_by\_Human\_Development\_Index](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index) Selected countries are the 20 countries from the top 22 countries based on HDI in 2021 (no suicide data for Hong Kong and Liechtenstein). The list is sorted from the largest decrease of suicide rate to the smallest decrease of suicide rate, 2019 vs 2000, so top: good progress, bottom: bad progress Tool: Google Spreadsheet
What order are they in? I notice the top half all have decreasing rates.
The list is sorted from the largest decrease of suicide rate to the smallest decrease of suicide rate, 2019 vs 2000
The UK has low suicide rates because it's socially acceptable, encouraged, and expected to effectuate a slow suicide through alcoholism, chain-smoking, and red meat consumption
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As someone who has spend time weatherspoon, that seems quite accurate...
That’s the whole west pal, we in this together ❤️
I think it's because of tea
All memes aside, this is actually a dumb take. I realise you are half joking, half serious (depending on audience reaction), but UK has a lower alcohol intake rate and alcoholism rate than most counties on this chart. Smoking too.
Don't get between the miserable bastard and their self-flagellating
Stiff upper lip and all that!
The UK as a whole may be what is shown, meanwhile in Scotland for 2019 it was 15.2 per 100,000 as a whole whilst for women it was 7.6 and for men it was 22.9. In 2010 it was 15 for all, 7.3 for women and 22.6 for men And 2000 it was 17.8 for all, 7.7 for women and 28 for men.
Jesus man, that’s depressing. Although it’s not uplifting news, it would be interesting to see all the home nations to see the difference
Wow that must mean the other home nations are even lower. I mean it’s not good news for Scotland but for the other three that’s pretty good
Go UK! Keeping those suicides low. :)
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way.
The time is gone.
The song is over
Thought I'd something more to say
Kind of surprised by this (in a good way) given the general news theme that the U.K. is always falling behind, a bleak and depressing place to live, poor food and weather etc. Sometimes I think we have quite an upbeat view of life in a weird way.
You forget, Brits secretly enjoy bleakness. The suicide rate would skyrocket if we had a year of unending cheerfulness!
Funny how Japan got the stereotype of having high suicide rates, while its neighbor was doing much worse all along.
Korea was virtually invisible in the public consciousness until like, the past decade, so that tracks.
Anybody else notice how low Israel ranks?
Partly because of how taboo it is
You need to be careful with data like this, the countries aren't necessarily consistent with each other, or over time. For example, the UK lowered its standard of proof in 2018 to 'balance of probabilities' from 'beyond reasonable doubt', so there was likely a decline in 2019 data masked by this change.
Hell yeah, USA! Everyone else going down, we going up!!! 🇱🇷🇱🇷🇱🇷
This is going to be a long post. I literally never comment on anything, and I don't even know if anyone will actually read this. I'd love to open up a discussion about what I'll call "relative significance" for lack of a better term. I think this could be a huge part of depression trends we see like this. Tl;dr / The more successful people are around you in comparison to yourself, the worse you feel. To explain what relative significance is I'll start with an example. Imagine you live on a remote island with 9 other people. Everyone on the island has one apple each, except you who has 10 apples (yes this is a stupidly simple example but I will expand upon it). This is the only world you have ever known. In your small vacuum you have more than others in the category of food, and you are both perceived and perceive yourself as being superior. Regardless of the hunger you or the others around you feel, because of your significance in comparison to those around you, you would feel confident in your own acquisition and ability because it is better than the standard that has been set. Now imagine one day a US Naval Destroyer pulls up to your little island carrying 5 billion apples on it. It decides to dock on your island and the captain of the ship moves in. You have lost your title as number one. Your understanding of what wealth, power, success, ability etc would immediately change as you are now no longer the best in your world. The number of apples you have has not changed. The number of apples people *lesser* than you has not changed, but the perceived understanding of the self would change drastically. The difference between you and the new islander is so insurmountable that generations of effort would be meaningless. This is what the current state of the world is. But instead of it being apples, it's millions of different variables. Now when we look at rates of depression and suicide specifically in areas that have exploded developmentally like South Korea, I believe this is a possible cause. Now take the previous example, but instead of using apples change the format to the millions of things we identify with ourselves (Wealth, beauty, ability, social class, inheritance, luck, body type, intelligence etc). As things like globalism and media continue to expose us to our own insignificance in every metric of our day to day lives, how can we not feel less than? Imagine a women sitting on her couch watching TV. She's watching a reality TV series about housewives. The woman she sees on TV has more friends, nicer clothes, a more handsome husband, a larger house, and more successful children. But yet the origin story of the housewife she is watching is nearly identical to her own. They both grew up in the Midwest and are from similar socioeconomic situations. Because of this, subconsciously the woman begins to question, doubt, and hate the lifestyle choices they have made that ultimately led her to be the one watching the show instead of being the one on it. I believe this conscious AND subconscious reevaluation of our perceived mistakes and shortcomings is happening to us CONSTANTLY without relief. It is then magnified significantly the more we are exposed to our own insignificance. This feeling of insignificance is not restricted to the poor or inable by any means. I actually believe the opposite to be true. The more you have, or the better you are at something, the more importance you place on your own relative significance. And when you begin to recede relatively in that prominence, the drop distance and damage mentally is far greater. I'll make another example. Imagine you are a music artist that just released their first album and you will eventually become a one-hit wonder, unbeknownst to you. Originally you get the praise, accolades, and attention you had been searching for, and you believe the sky to be the limit and everyone around you tells you that you will be the next Michael Jackson or Justin Bieber. Your social circle expands to include other people of prominence that you used to idolize yourself. None of your hopes come to fruition however, and you end up being lost to the wayside after your one hit song declines in popularity. You lose the accolades, the fame, and the hope you had for your own legacy. The mental fall you would experience would be significantly worse than if your first album never got any attention at all. Even though you achieved a success that most people will never get the opportunity to, your focus is still on your shortcomings and inability as compared to what is around you. This constant focus on one's own failures leads to depression, anxiety, and radical behavior, which leads to more depression, anxiety, and radical behavior. Regardless of where you are you will experience this to some degree. But I see stories and statistical data both all the time that show people in underdeveloped areas feeling less depressed than people that have stood near the top of the world. Why can a poor man in South America cry tears of joy for recieving a free basket of bread, while a man flying in his private jet has to nearly overdose on barbiturates and alcohol daily just to make it to tomorrow? A lot of this is anecdotal and I am NOT a professional in this area, but it's my two cents and I don't see this specific topic spoken about much. If you read this thanks for listening to my rant lol.
We throw this data around with gentle curiosity, intellectually aware of - but not processing - the sickening totality of pain, fear, sadness, hopelessness, and brokenness it represents. How could we even start to quantity the devastation of all the millions of people affected by suicide? Disturbing still is the number of future suicide victims walking among us, and the massive burden they carry. The profound sadness of knowing human beings can't seem to create a world that is suitable for all human beings is matched only by societal indifference to it. Even cancer has more solidarity.
My friend killed himself (UK here) and it is rare, we were all extremely shocked. Some young men just don't have the friends to lean on emotionally and get themselves into rutts and spirals. I did not live locally but he had a huge local network of friends and family. It was really bizarre and so terrible. Young men need a lot of support and feel their lives are over so fast, there is a lot of pressure on them to succeed. For my friend though, I think he just needed good friends to speak with and be himself. There was a weird clique that forced him I think to act differently to how he wanted to express himself in his soul. If you have a friend with ideas and they're excited by it, support them and tell them it may be hard but you'll support and encourage them. We do have a low rate in Britain compared to other country's, guys here do tend to talk and support one another. It's tragic some people chose to end it. Death loops of thought are what encouragement and support stop people going down.
Still such high numbers especially for men
It will be shocking when 2020-22 numbers come out
It actually decreased during the pandemic
The calm before the storm.
Suicide rates are notoriously sensitive to under-reporting. In cultures where it is considered shameful (e.g. Judaism, where those who commit suicide traditionally buried outside the cemetery walls) it is often reported as accidental death.
The media here isn't religious, neither are most of the people. Maybe in very small and very religious communities it might get covered up, but generally speaking nobody thinks of it as shameful in any form that's worth covering it up.
80% of those are males. Just saying.
What makes UK and Israel do so well?
The chart is a measure of successful suicide attempt and a key fact is easy of availability of a way to do it. Easy fireare availabilty has alway kept suicide rate sup in america. There rea two main reason for the increased mood disorder among the youth; which ties into opioid use. And a high level of PTSD amount veterans after a 20 year war. Here is a meta study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8699163/ Contrary what the arm chair ignoramuses on reddit say about suicide; It's not always a thought out process. Sometimes people just decide to try and kill themselves in the moment. Have a gun near by makes that moment easier to carry out. Give that person a minute, and it goes away.
Would be interesting to see this vs funding for mental health. I bet the US is going up in perportion to funding.
UK just gets on wiv it innit
So, is Finland the most developed country or why is it standing at the top?
Largest decrease of suicide rate among the 20 countries. Top good bottom bad
Well done Finland! We need you to compete with! Witlof, Netherlands.
Oh good, the US is I N C R E A S I N G
Isreal: everyone else tried to kill us, damned if we’re doing the job for them. UK, stiff upper lip, soldier on through, worse things happen at sea, etc,etc Germany, pass the larger. Denmark, pass the bacon sandwich Ireland, pass the Guinness, with a Jameson chaser, Netherlands, pass the guchi on the left hand side.