Employment status and suicide: the complex relationships between changing unemployment rates and death rates.
BACKGROUND
Existing studies have described a strong correlation between unemployment rates and suicide rates, but the exact mechanisms through which they may interact with one another remain unknown.


METHODS
This study examined the complex relationships between suicide rates and both regional unemployment rates and individual employment status during times of economic recession (2000-3) and recovery (2003-6) in Hong Kong.


RESULTS
Despite the strong correlation (0.86) between the unemployment rates and suicide rates for 2000-6, the rates of suicides within the employed and unemployed groups moved in the opposite direction from the overall population trend. That is, the suicide rate among the unemployed decreased during economic recession and increased during recovery.


CONCLUSIONS
It is important to be able to distinguish precisely between population-level concepts, such as rates, and individual-level characteristics, such as employment status, when considering the development of evidence-based suicide prevention strategies.
The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China. sfpyip@hkucc.hku.hk
Paul S F
PS
Yip
Eric D
ED
Caine
D000328:Adult; D057172:Economic Recession; D006723:Hong Kong / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D009026:Mortality / Q000639:trends*; D013405:Suicide; D014478:Unemployment / Q000523:psychology*; D055815:Young Adult