Europe’s Suicides Up, Road Deaths Down After Economy Tanked
THURSDAY, July 7 (HealthDay News) — Suicide rates increased in
Europe since the start of the global financial crisis, while road deaths
decreased, according to researchers.
Across the European Union, unemployment rose 2.6 percent (a 35 percent
relative increase) between 2007 and 2009. At the same time, there was a
reversal in the steady downward trend in suicide rates seen in EU
countries before 2007.
In 2008, the suicide rate increased less than 1 percent in new EU
member states (those that joined in 2004) and increased nearly 7 percent
in old member states (pre-2004). In both groups of countries, suicide
rates continued to rise in 2009, the new findings showed.
“The countries facing the most severe financial reversals of fortune,
such as Greece and Ireland, had greater rises in suicides (17 percent and
13 percent, respectively) than did the other countries, and in Latvia
suicides increased by more than 17 percent between 2007 and 2008,”
according to the findings reported in a letter released online in advance
of publication in the July 9 print issue of The Lancet.
Of all the countries studied, only Austria had fewer suicides in 2009
than in 2007 (a 5 percent decline), researcher David Stuckler of the
University of Cambridge in England, and colleagues found.
While suicides increased, there was a substantial decline in road
deaths in the EU, especially in new member countries with previously high
road death rates. For example, the road death rate in Lithuania fell by
almost 50 percent, the authors noted.
The overall decline in road deaths was likely associated with reduced
car use due to higher levels of unemployment, Stuckler and colleagues
said. They pointed out that road deaths in the United States fell by 10
percent since the start of the economic downturn.
The researchers also found that the availability of organs for
transplants — which are dependent on donors involved in traffic
crashes — dwindled, especially in places such as Spain and Ireland where
road deaths fell by more than 25 percent between 2007 and 2009.
“These findings … reveal the rapidity of the health consequences of
financial crises,” the researchers wrote.
The team is conducting further research to learn more about why some
people, communities and entire societies are especially vulnerable to
economic turmoil, while others are more resilient.
More information
The American Psychological Association outlines ways to manage your stress during difficult financial times.