This article needs to be updated. The reason given is: Outdated statistics. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. Last update: 2019(July 2024)
A map of global suicide rates, age-standardized per 100,000 population, 2019. [needs update]
The following are lists of countries by estimated suicide rates as published by the World Health Organization (WHO) and other sources.[note 1]
In many countries, suicide rates are underreported due to social stigma, cultural or legal concerns.[3] Thus, these figures cannot be used to compare real suicide rates, which are unknown in most countries.
The global total of suicide deaths decreased from an estimated 762,000 in 2000 to 717,000 in 2021, which is 9.1 deaths per 100,000 population.[4] In high-income countries, male and female rates of suicidal behaviors differ compared to the rest of the world: while women are reportedly more prone to suicidal thoughts, rates of suicide are higher among men, which has been described as a "silent epidemic".[5][6][7][8][9]
In 2021, the global rate of suicide deaths for men was 12.3 per 100,000, more than double the rate for women, which stood at 5.9 per 100,000 population. However, the sex disparity was uneven across regions, with a male-to-female ratio ranging from as low as 1.4 in the Southeast Asia Region to nearly 4.0 in the Region of the Americas.[10]
In much of the world, suicide is stigmatized and condemned for religious or cultural reasons. In some countries, suicidal behavior is a criminal offense punishable by law. Suicide is, therefore, often a secretive act surrounded by taboo and may be unrecognized, misclassified, or deliberately hidden in official records of death.[5]
— World Health Organization (2002)
As such, suicide rates may be higher than measured, with men more at risk of dying by suicide than women across nearly all cultures and backgrounds.[11]Suicide prevention and intervention is an important topic for all peoples, according to the WHO.[12]
Suicide rates vary by country and suicide occurs in all regions of the world. In a 2024 WHO report, 73% of reported suicides were in low and middle-income countries. Mental illness and suicide are linked, though many suicides are impulsive and occur due to crisis. Groups subject to discrimination, including refugees, indigenous populations, and LGBT people, experience high suicide rates. Societal taboos and lack of quality suicide data are impeding factors in suicide prevention. Suicide prevention includes such measures as restricting access to methods, responsible media reporting, and treatment and assessment of suicidal people.[13]
Suicide rates by gender and country, age-standardized, per 100K population, World Health Organization, 2019.[14]
This section needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(October 2024)
Male and female suicide rates are out of the total male population and total female population, respectively, i.e. total number of male suicides divided by the total male population. Age-standardized rates account for the influence that different population age distributions might have on the analysis of crude death rates, statistically addressing the prevailing trends by age-groups and populations' structures, to enhance long term cross-national comparability.
Based on age-groups' deviation from standardized population structures, rates are rounded up or down (age-adjustment). Basically, the presence of younger individuals in any given age structure carries more weight. If the rate is rounded up, that means the median age is lower than average for that region or country, and vice versa when rounded down.
Most countries listed above report a higher male suicide rate. Worldwide, there are about 3 male suicides out of 4, or a factor of 3:1. For example, the ratio in the United States was 3.36 in 2015, and 3.53 in 2016.[16][a]
Though age-standardization is common statistical process to categorize mortality data for comparing purposes, this approach by WHO is based on estimates which take into account issues such as under-reporting, resulting in rates differing from the official national statistics prepared and endorsed by individual countries. Revisions are also performed periodically. Age-adjusted rates are mortality rates that would have existed if all populations under study had the same age distribution as a "standard" population. Plain, crude estimated rates are available at here and here. Countries with a population less than 100 000 are excluded.
Countries with large internal discrepancies are complicated to assess. Canada, a country with a comparatively low suicide rate overall at 10.3 incidents per 100,000 people in 2016, exhibits one such discrepancy. When comparing the suicide rate of Indigenous peoples in Canada, the rate of suicide increases to 24.3 incidents per 100,000 people in 2016,[18] a rate among the ten highest in the world. There are numerous differences in living standards and income that contribute to this phenomenon, classed as an epidemic in Canada.[19]
List by other sources and years (1985–2019)
Global suicide rates per 100,000 people, 1978–2009.[20]
In the list below various sources from various years are included, mixing plain crude rates with age-adjusted rates and estimated rates, so cross-national comparability is somewhat skewed.
* indicates "Suicide in COUNTRY or TERRITORY" or "Mental Health in COUNTRY or TERRITORY" links.
^The male-female ratio shown below is based on the age-standardized rates: as compared to WHO world standard population, women's median age and life expectancy might be greater than that of men's for that country when rounded up, and vice versa when rounded down.[17]
^Nevertheless, jumping from a high building as well as drowning were common methods of suicide in Taiwan,[note 2][32][33] indicating the potential risks of type I and type II errors and misuse of statistics within the government's report. Hence, if halves of the death rates of the drowning and fall that were shown in government's report were extracted and added into the self-inflicted deaths (intentional injury death of self), it yields 0.0201% which is thought better reflecting the real case.
^Furthermore, jumping from a high building as well as drowning were common methods of suicide in Taiwan.[note 5][32][33]
^The first global estimates on suicide mortality began in the early 1980s, as a single World Bank-commissioned study on general mortality data compiled by the WHO as the first work of its kind on the global burden of disease (GBD).[1] In the following years, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation acted as the coordinating center for the study then resulted in the collaboration between several researchers and institutions from many countries.[2]
^In government's annual release, there were 3637 people per one hundred thousands of people in 2018 died of contacting poison, accidental fall, exposure to fire or smoke, accidental drowning including sinking beneath water to death in addition to the suicidal death that was equal to 3865 people per 100,000 people.
^Recently released figures by official Belgian authorities suggest a considerably higher rate of 17.0 persons (total) per 100,000 people per annum in 2009 (5,712 cases in a population of 10,749,000 (=10,666,866 as of 1 January 2008 increasing by 0,77% per annum.) as of 1 January 2009)."Toenemend aantal zelfdodingen in Belgie" (in Dutch). 2011. Archived from the original on 5 December 2012.
^In government's annual release, there were 3637 people per one hundred thousands people in 2018 died of contacting poison, accidental fall, exposure to fire or smoke, accidental drowning, or sinking beneath water that were excluded from the statistical suicidal death figure equal to 3865 people per 100,000 people.
The updated figure of suicide rates in Belgium for 2011 is 2,084 with a total population of 10,933,607, equivalent to 18.96 per 100,000 inhabitants (source: Het Nieuwsblad, 10 April 2014).
Taiwan is not a member of the WHO. The Taiwanese government adopted the WHO standard in 2007. According to the Taiwanese government's self-released data, the figure is standardized based upon the population within Taiwan.[82][83]
^Burrows, Stephanie; Laflamme, Lucie (February 2006). "Suicide Mortality in South Africa". Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology. 41 (2): 108–114. doi:10.1007/s00127-005-0004-4. PMID16362168. S2CID123246.. This data is for urban areas only. The data available for the whole of South Africa in 2007 are: men 1.4, women 0.4, total 0.9 (source: WHO)
^"Dödsorsaker 2012" [Causes of Death 2012] (PDF). www.socialstyrelsen.se - 6 August 2013.pdf (in Swedish and English). Statistics Sweden. 2013. Archived from the original(PDF) on 19 October 2014. Retrieved 13 September 2014.
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