Aussie expert questions suicide-unemployment link

An Australian expert has poured cold water on a study suggesting suicide rates increase when unemployment rises. After examining the effects of economic changes on mortality rates in Europe over more than three decades to 2007, researchers found for every 1% increase in unemployment, there was a 0.79% rise in suicides among people aged under 65. Suicide increased at an accelerated rate when unemployment rose by more than 3% a year, said the study authors, who also reported spikes in homicides linked with widespread job losses. But Professor Gordon Parker, executive director of the Black Dog Institute in Sydney, said while the findings on suicide made “intuitive sense”, they were unlikely to be applicable to the current economic situation in Australia. The study covered a period marked by strong economic growth, with sporadic dips and without today’s prevailing sense of crisis, he said. It would be more instructive to look at what happened during the Great Depression, when suicide rates in the US dropped “despite all the mythology of stockbrokers jumping out of windows,” he said. Suicide rates probably fell during hard times, as communities bonded in the face of an external threat, he said. “While not belittling the pain felt by many individuals during recession, to my mind there is a second phenomenon going on, where people feel ‘we’re all in this together’, and there’s actually some community cohesion that discourages suicide,” Professor Parker said. He and his colleagues were seeing very few cases of downturn- related misery, he added. Lancet 2009; online. Australian Doctor...