World Suicide Prevention Day 2019 Facts and Figures
- Over 800,000 people die by suicide annually, representing 1 person every 40 seconds
- Suicide is the 15th leading cause of death globally, account for 1.4% of all deaths
- The global suicide rate is 11.4 per 100 000 population
- 15.0/100 000 for males • 8.0/100 000 for females
- Suicide is the result of a convergence of risk factors including but not limited to genetic, psychological, social and cultural risk factors, sometimes combined with experiences of trauma and loss
- Depression is the most common psychiatric disorder in people who die by suicide
- 50% of individuals in high income countries who die by suicide have major depressive disorder at their time of death
- For every 1 suicide 25 people make a suicide attempt
- 135 people are affected by each suicide death
- This equates to 108 million people bereaved by suicide worldwide every year
- Relatives and close friends of people who die by suicide are a high-risk group for suicide, due to the psychological trauma of a suicide loss and potential shared familial and environmental risk, suicide contagion through the process of social modelling, and the burden of stigma associated with this loss
- Effective suicide prevention strategies need to incorporate public health policy strategies and healthcare strategies, incorporating measure with the strongest evidence of efficacy such as: restriction of access to lethal means; treatment of depression; ensuring chain of care; and school-based universal prevention
About World Suicide Prevention Day:
World Suicide Prevention Day (WSPD) is an awareness day observed on September 10th every year, in order to provide worldwide commitment and action to prevent suicides, with various activities around the world since 2003. The International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP) collaborates with the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Federation for Mental Health (WFMH) to host World Suicide Prevention Day.
Source: (www.iasp.info/wspd2019/)