Relationship of suicide rates with climate and economic variables in Europe during 2000–2012

Abstract

Background

It is well known that suicidal rates vary considerably among European countries and the reasons for this are unknown, although several theories have been proposed. The effect of economic variables has been extensively studied but not that of climate.

Methods

Data from 29 European countries covering the years 2000–2012 and concerning male and female standardized suicidal rates (according to WHO), economic variables (according World Bank) and climate variables were gathered. The statistical analysis included cluster and principal component analysis and categorical regression.

Results

The derived models explained 62.4 % of the variability of male suicidal rates. Economic variables alone explained 26.9 % and climate variables 37.6 %. For females, the respective figures were 41.7, 11.5 and 28.1 %. Male suicides correlated with high unemployment rate in the frame of high growth rate and high inflation and low GDP per capita, while female suicides correlated negatively with inflation. Both male and female suicides correlated with low temperature.

Discussion

The current study reports that the climatic effect (cold climate) is stronger than the economic one, but both are present. It seems that in Europe suicidality follows the climate/temperature cline which interestingly is not from south to north but from south to north-east. This raises concerns that climate change could lead to an increase in suicide rates. The current study is essentially the first successful attempt to explain the differences across countries in Europe; however, it is an observational analysis based on aggregate data and thus there is a lack of control for confounders.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12991-016-0106-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Contributors

Konstantinos N. Fountoulakis: [e-mail]

Isaia Chatzikosta: [e-mail]

Konstantinos Pastiadis: [e-mail]

Prodromos Zanis: [e-mail]

Wolfram Kawohl: [e-mail]

Ad J. F. M. Kerkhof: [e-mail]

Alvydas Navickas: [e-mail]

Cyril Höschl: [e-mail]

Dusica Lecic-Tosevski: [e-mail]

Eliot Sorel: [e-mail]

Elmars Rancans: [e-mail]

Eva Palova: [e-mail]

Georg Juckel: [e-mail]

Goran Isacsson: [e-mail]

Helena Korosec Jagodic: [e-mail]

Ileana Botezat-Antonescu: [e-mail]

Janusz Rybakowski: [e-mail]

Jean Michel Azorin: [e-mail]

John Cookson: [e-mail]

John Waddington: [e-mail]

Peter Pregelj: [e-mail]

Koen Demyttenaere: [e-mail]

Luchezar G. Hranov: [e-mail]

Lidija Injac Stevovic: [e-mail]

Lucas Pezawas: [e-mail]

Marc Adida: [e-mail]

Maria Luisa Figuera: [e-mail]

Miro Jakovljević: [e-mail]

Monica Vichi: [e-mail]

Giulio Perugi: [e-mail]

Ole A. Andreassen: [e-mail]

Olivera Vukovic: [e-mail]

Paraskevi Mavrogiorgou: [e-mail]

Peeter Varnik: [e-mail]

Peter Dome: [e-mail]

Petr Winkler: [e-mail]

Raimo K. R. Salokangas: [e-mail]

Tiina From: [e-mail]

Vita Danileviciute: [e-mail]

Xenia Gonda: [e-mail]

Zoltan Rihmer: [e-mail]

Jonas Forsman: [e-mail]

Anne Grady: [e-mail]

Thomas Hyphantis: [e-mail]

Ingrid Dieset: [e-mail]

Susan Soendergaard: [e-mail]

Maurizio Pompili: [e-mail]

Per Bech: [e-mail]

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Ann Gen Psychiatry

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Ann Gen Psychiatry

Title: Annals of General Psychiatry

Publisher: BioMed Central (London )

ISSN (Electronic): 1744-859X

Publication date (Electronic): 9 August 2016

Publication date PMC-release: 9 August 2016

Publication date Collection: 2016

Volume: 15

Affiliations

[1 ]3rd Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece

[2 ]Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece

[3 ]Department of Music Studies, School of Fine Arts, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece

[4 ]Department of Meteorology and Climatology, School of Geology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece

[5 ]Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Center for Social Psychiatry, University Hospital of Psychiatry, Zurich, Switzerland

[6 ]Department of Clinical Psychology, Faculty of Psychology and Education, VU University Amsterdam, Van der Boechorststraat 1, 1081 BT Amsterdam, The Netherlands

[7 ]Clinic of Psychiatric, Faculty of Medicine, Vilnius University, Vilnius, Lithuania

[8 ]National Institute of Mental Health, Klecany, Czech Republic

[9 ]Institute of Mental Health, WHO Collaborating Centre, Palmoticeva 37, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia

[10 ]The George Washington University, School of Medicine & School of Public Health, Washington, DC USA

[11 ]Department of Psychiatry and Narcology, Riga Stradins University, Tvaika Str. 2, Riga, LV 1005 Latvia

[12 ]Department of Psychiatry, University Hospital, SNP 1, 040 66 Košice, Slovakia

[13 ]Department of Psychiatry, Ruhr University Bochum, LWL-University Hospital, Alexandrinenstr.1, 44791 Bochum, Germany

[14 ]Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Solna, Sweden

[15 ]Psychiatric Hospital Vojnik, Celjska Cesta 37, Vojnik, Slovenia

[16 ]National Mental Health Center and Anti-drug, Bucharest, Romania

[17 ]Department of Adult Psychiatry, Poznan University of Medical Sciences, Poznan, Poland

[18 ]Department of Psychiatry, Sainte Marguerite Hospital, 13274 Marseille, France

[19 ]East London NHS Trust, London, E1 4DG UK

[20 ]Molecular & Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin 2, Ireland

[21 ]University Psychiatric Hospital, Ljubljana, Slovenia

[22 ]University Psychiatric Center KU Leuven, Louvain, Belgium

[23 ]Second Psychiatric Clinic, University Hospital for Active Treatment in Neurology and Psychiatry “Sveti Naum”, Sofia, Bulgaria

[24 ]Psychiatric Clinic, Clinical Center of Montenegro, School of Medicine, University of Montenegro, Podgorica, Montenegro

[25 ]Division of Biological Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

[26 ]Faculty of Medicine, University of Lisbon, Av. Prof. Egas Moniz, 1649-035 Lisbon, Portugal

[27 ]Department of Psychiatry, University Hospital Center Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia

[28 ]Centre for Epidemiology, Surveillance and Health Promotion (CNESPS), National Institute of Health (ISS), Rome, Italy

[29 ]Psychiatry Unit, Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy

[30 ]Institute of Behavioral Sciences “G. De Lisio”, Pisa, Italy

[31 ]NORMENT, KG Jebsen Centre for Psychosis Research, Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

[32 ]Division of Mental Health and Addiction, Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway

[33 ]Institute of Mental Health, School of Medicine, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia

[34 ]Estonian-Swedish Mental Health and Suicidology Institute, Tallinn, Estonia

[35 ]Department of Clinical and Theoretical Mental Health, Faculty of Medicine, Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary

[36 ]Laboratory for Suicide Research and Prevention, National Institute of Psychiatry and Addictions, Budapest, Hungary

[37 ]Department of Psychiatry, University of Turku, Turku, Finland

[38 ]Department of Pharmacodynamics, MTA-SE, Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary

[39 ]Neuropsychopharmacology and Neurochemistry Research Group, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary

[40 ]Department of Psychiatry, Ioannina School of Medicine, Ioannina, Greece

[41 ]Psychiatric Research Unit, Mental Health Centre North Zealand, University of Copenhagen, Dyrehavevej 48, 3400 Hillerød, Denmark

[42 ]Department of Neurosciences, Mental Health and Sensory Organs, Suicide Prevention Center, Sant’Andrea Hospital, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy

Article

Publisher ID: 106

DOI: 10.1186/s12991-016-0106-2

PMC ID: 4977895

PubMed ID: 27508001

Copyright statement: © The Author(s) 2016

License:

Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.

Categories

Subject: Primary Research

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