Dr. Margaret Chan, Director General of the World health Organization, issued a statement on September 4, 2014 about suicide, emphasizing that the magnitude of the problem is largely unrecognized, and efforts to prevent suicide are not prioritized globally. The press release is here:
http://www.who.int/...
More below the baroque Möbius strip:
The numbers are staggering, and can seem overwhelming:
More than 800 000 people die by suicide every year – around one person every 40 seconds, according to WHO's first global report on suicide prevention, published today. Some 75% of suicides occur in low- and middle-income countries...
In richer countries, three times as many men die by suicide than women. Men aged 50 years and over are particularly vulnerable.
In low- and middle-income countries, young adults and elderly women have higher rates of suicide than their counterparts in high-income countries. Women over 70 years old are more than twice as likely to die by suicide than women aged 15-29 years."
"Significantly, a prior suicide attempt is the single most important risk factor for suicide in the general population.
The full report is here:
http://apps.who.int/...
Some more information about suicide and suicide intervention is found in the Suicide Prevention and Assessment Handbook from the Canadian Centre for Addiction and Mental Health:
http://www.camh.ca/...
As the WHO report noted, prior suicide attempt is the greatest risk factor for future attempts, but the next highest factor in relative risk of suicide is presence of an eating disorder (I’m a licensed psychologist in clinical practice, and I was surprised to see eating disorders appear on the list second only to prior suicide attempt). In the media at least, eating disorders are rarely associated with suicide, yet they rank above depression, bi-polar disorder, schizophrenia and drug or alcohol abuse (CAMH, pg.2):
Relative Risk of Suicide in Specific Disorders
Prior suicide attempt 38.4
Eating disorders 23.1
Bipolar disorder 21.7
Major depression 20.4
Mixed drug abuse 19.2
Dysthymia 12.1
Obsessive-compulsive disorder 11.5
Panic disorder 10.0
Schizophrenia 8.45
Personality disorders 7.08
Alcohol abuse 5.86
Cancer 1.80
General population 1.00
A relative risk of 1 means there is no difference in risk between the two groups...
A relative risk of > 1 means the event is more likely to occur in the experimental group than in the control group.