title: Suicide rate in relation to the Human Development Index and other health related factors: A global ecological study from 91 countries.
abstract: There has been no worldwide ecological study on suicide as a global major public health problem. This study aimed to identify the variations in suicide specific rates using the Human Development Index (HDI) and some health related variables among countries around the world. In this ecological study, we obtained the data from the World Bank Report 2013. The analysis was restricted to 91 countries for which both the epidemiologic data from the suicide rates and HDI were available. Overall, the global prevalence of suicide rate was 10.5 (95% confidence intervals: 8.8, 12.2) per 100,000 individuals, which significantly varied according to gender (16.3 in males vs. 4.6 in females, p<0.001) and different levels of human development (11.64/100,000 individuals in very high development countries, 7.93/100,000 individuals in medium development countries, and 13.94/100,000 individuals in high development countries, p=0.004). In conclusion, the suicide rate varies greatly between countries with different development levels. Our findings also suggest that male gender and HDI components are associated with an increased risk of suicide behaviors. Hence, detecting population subgroups with a high suicide risk and reducing the inequality of socioeconomic determinants are necessary to prevent this disorder around the world.
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, Hamadan, Iran.
authors.forename: Salman
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Khazaei
authors.affiliation: Social Determinants of Health Research Center, Gonabad University of Medical Science, Gonabad, Iran.
authors.forename: Vajihe
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Armanmehr
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Shahrzad
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Nematollahi
authors.affiliation: Research Center for Environmental Determinants of Health (RCEDH), Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, Kermanshah, Iran. Electronic address: shahab.rezayan@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Shahab
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Rezaeian
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, Hamadan, Iran.
authors.forename: Somayeh
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Khazaei
mesh_terms: D019049:Developed Countries; D003906:Developing Countries; D005260:Female; D014943:Global Health; D006803:Human Development; D006801:Humans; D038622:Internationality; D008297:Male; D015995:Prevalence; D017678:Sex Distribution; D013405:Suicide / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D014480:United Nations
keywords: Ecological study; Human Development Index; Suicide