The World Health Organization (WHO) recently released a report about the global suicide rate that aims at increasing awareness and focus on prevention of suicide in countries around the world. The WHO estimates that every year, approximately 800,000 people commit suicide around the world. India has the world's highest suicide rate by population, the report estimates.
Dr. Margaret Chen, the Director-General of the WHO, opened the report with a statement urging healthcare officials to pay more attention to suicide and to treat it as the serious healthcare problem that it is.
The death of Robin Williams last month made many Americans focus on the severe implications of depression and suicide. It's important that we keep that focus on suicide prevention in the future.
The WHO began an initiative called the Mental Health Action Plan in May 2013 to focus on disorders such as depression, anxiety and suicide. The organization hopes to have 10 percent fewer suicides globally by 2020. One thing that they put out as a way to reduce suicide is to remove access to ways to commit suicide, such as tightening control on guns and poisons.
The WHO estimated that for every 100,000 people on Earth, about 11.4 commit suicide every year. That number is likely even higher in truth, because suicides tend to be underreported due to the stigma associated with them.
If you thought that suicide stats were not a huge cause for concern, these numbers might convince you otherwise: globally, suicide is the second largest cause of death for people aged 15 to 29. Approximately half of all violent deaths in men are caused by suicide, approximately 70 percent of all violent deaths in women.
Other things which the WHO suggested could reduce the risk of suicide include offering easy access to preventive care, like therapy. Another factor is the way that media handles suicide. If suicide is given a lot of attention by the media, there is often an increased wave of suicides over the following weeks. For example, Malcolm Gladwell wrote about the trend in suicides in the island of Micronesia in his book The Tipping Point. One well-publicized, very dramatic suicide there sparked a wave of teenage suicide attempts that lasted for many years, causing an epidemic.
The effort by the WHO to reduce suicide globally is one of the first, largest efforts ever to address this issue. If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts, call the national hotline at 1-800-273-8255.
