Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Irish suicides among EU highest

THE growing rate of people taking their own lives in Ireland has contributed towards a general international spike in suicide deaths, with the recession being blamed.

New international research published in medical journal The Lancet yesterday shows that Ireland, Greece and Latvia saw the most dramatic rises in suicides, with the increases coinciding with the economic collapse.

The findings are based on a preliminary assessment based on data on mortality in several European countries for 2009, combined with complete data for the period 2000–09 — currently only available for 10 of the 27 EU countries: six in the pre-2004 EU, including Ireland, and four in the post-2004 EU.

According to the article: "In both old and new EU member states, official unemployment did not increase until 2009, after the banking crisis.

"Job loss then increased rapidly, to about 35% above the 2007 level in both parts of Europe (about 26 percentage points in the EU overall). However, the steady downward trend in suicide rates, seen in both groups of countries before 2007, reversed at once.

"The 2008 increase was less than 1% in the new member states, but in the old ones it increased by almost 7%. In both, suicides increased further in 2009."

The authors of the article, led by Dr David Stuckler of the University of Cambridge, recommended that "a strong social safety net" comprising active labour market policies and strong social support networks could help reduce future suicide rates, even though suicide rates in Finland, a country with such policies, also increased.

As for the Irish context, according to the article: "We can already see that the countries facing the most severe financial reversals of fortune, such as Greece and Ireland, had greater rises in suicides (17% and 13%, respectively) than did the other countries, and in Latvia suicides increased by more than 17% between 2007 and 2008."

Speaking on RTÉ’s News At One programme, Dr Stuckler said that a rapid turnaround in suicide rates coincided with the economic crash.

"It seems to be most pronounced in the countries that had the greatest rises in unemployment and economic insecurity," he said, adding that the drop in road deaths and subsequent fall in organ donations may also have been affected by the recession.

The researchers are also examining why some individuals, communities and entire societies are especially vulnerable while others seem more resilient to economic shocks and the extent to which government policy responses affect health.

The rise in suicides here has been driven primarily by an increase in deaths in middle-aged groups.

Frank Conway, director of moneycoach.ie, said: "Here in Ireland, there needs to be a quickening of the reform of personal debt laws in Ireland as recommended by the Law Reform Commission on December 16 last. Under the Law Reform Commission proposals, a range of measures could assist those in most severe financial difficulty."