CAMH finds contextual factors associated with higher suicide rates

Highlighting the need for more enhanced and targeted suicide prevention efforts, the CAMH study of national suicide rates in 33 countries in the Americas over the past 20 years found found eight population-level factors associated with suicide rates:

1. Alcohol use;
2. Education inequality;
3. Health expenditure;
4. Homicide rate;
5. Intravenous drug use;
6. Number of employed doctors;
7. Population density; and
8. Unemployment rate.

While suicide rates in the rest of the world went down in the past two decades, they increased in North, Central and South America. Overall, Canadians had the sixth highest suicide rate among the 33 countries studied.