Impact of Meteorological Factors on Suicide Attempts and Completed Suicides in Croatia, Osijek-Baranja County

Dumenčić, Boris; Rajc, Jasmina; Marjanović, Ksenija; Požgain, Ivan; Pavoković, Dino

doi:10.24869/psyd.2019.405

Cited by 13 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…In agreement with the findings of the current study, some studies conducted in other countries have found a similar larger risk for females [14,40], while other studies have found a higher risk for males in countries such as the UK, Spain, Mexico, and France [10,11,16]. This observed discrepancy in vulnerability across sex groups could be attributed to culture-specific factors [17].…”

Section: Comparison With Other Studiessupporting

confidence: 91%

Short-term exposure to ambient temperature and the mortality burden of suicide in Japan

Thawonmas,

Kim,

Hashizume

2024

Environ. Res. Commun.

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BackgroundPrevious studies suggest that temperature may trigger suicide, with higher ambient temperatures associated with increased risk globally. However, quantification of the attributable suicide burden due to non-optimal temperatures, particularly across specific subgroups like sex, age, and method of suicide, is limited. This study aimed to quantify this attributable burden across Japan and assess variations in these subgroups to enhance understanding and identify high-risk populations.MethodsData on daily suicide counts and mean temperatures were collected for all 47 prefectures in Japan (1973-2015) for a comprehensive, nationally representative analysis. Using time-stratified case-crossover analyses and a distributed lag non-linear model (DLNM), we estimated temperature-suicide associations, accounting for long-term trends, seasonality, and day-of-the-week effects, and capturing both nonlinear and delayed impacts of temperature. Overall attributable fractions and fractions attributable to cold (0th-10th percentile), cool (10th-50th), warm (50th-90th), and hot (90th-100th) temperatures were computed. Subgroup analyses were conducted by sex, age (0-64 years and ≥65 years), and method of suicide (violent or nonviolent).ResultsApproximately 19.9% of suicides (95% empirical confidence interval (eCI): 18.8, 20.9) could be attributed to non-optimal temperatures, representing the proportion of cases that would not have occurred under optimal temperature conditions, identified at the temperature corresponding to the minimum risk of suicide. The highest fraction (9.9%, 95% eCI: 9.4, 10.4) was observed for warm temperatures (50th-90th percentile). Higher burdens were observed in females (23.7%), individuals aged ≥65 years (31.9%), and violent suicides (22.4%).ConclusionsNearly 20% of suicides in Japan are associated with non-optimal temperatures, particularly during warmer conditions. These findings highlight the importance of integrating temperature considerations into suicide prevention strategies, particularly for vulnerable populations such as the elderly. While focused on Japan, these results advocate future research to explore similar burdens globally, enhancing our understanding of environmental impacts on suicide and informing targeted public health interventions.

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Section: Comparison With Other Studiessupporting

confidence: 91%

Short-term exposure to ambient temperature and the mortality burden of suicide in Japan

Thawonmas,

Kim,

Hashizume

2024

Environ. Res. Commun.

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“…Several data, however, showed that a 26.6-60% of variation in suicidal behaviors could be explained by temperature fluctuations (29-31) but not with sunlight exposure, especially in completed suicide (16). Some researchers found a relationship between the warmest temperatures and suicide rates, mostly involving older subjects (32) and men relative to females (33) while others (34) found no association between weather variables and suicides in Colombia highlighting the absence of association in a tropical country where seasonal changes are not marked.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Meteorological Variables and Suicidal Behavior: Air Pollution and Apparent Temperature Are Associated With High-Lethality Suicide Attempts and Male Gender

et al. 2021

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This study analyzed the impact of meteorological variables and high-lethality suicide attempts (HLSA) to assess a potential time shift of HLSA affected by climate evolution to predict the suicide attempt cases over different periods of the year. After attempting suicide, 225 subjects were admitted to the emergency ward of the IRCCS Ospedale Policlinico San Martino and later to the psychiatric unit from March 2016 to July 2018. Socio-demographic and clinical characteristics as well as the meteorological variables were collected. The Mann-Kendall test as well as redundancy and cross-correlation analyses were performed to analyze the trends, statistically correlations, and correspondence of the trends, respectively between suicidal behaviors and climatic factors. Sixty-seven (29.8%) committed a HLSA. Our findings indicate a significant association between HLSA and male gender and apparent temperature with a strong correlation of 75% with a phase shift of −1 month. Solar radiation and air pollution (PM2.5) have a positive correlation of 65 and 32%, respectively, with a zero-time lag. Limitations include that the data are limited to a single hospital; psychological factors, or other clinical variables that could be ruled out as a trigger have not been considered. Meteorological variables may not mirror the temperature that the patient is exposed to due to the air conditioning systems. Exploring those environmental factors associated with HLSA in a more detailed manner could lead to early intervention and prevention strategies for such distressing admissions.

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“…Seasonally-uctuating factors that could regulate these temporal patterns are temperature and sunlight. Warm temperatures attenuate risk for circulatory system-related morbidity and mortality [28,[43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52] and warm temperatures, especially abnormally warm temperatures during cool months, increase risk, including short-term risk, for suicide [36,37,[53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65]. Sunlight similarly moderates circulatory disease-related morbidity and mortality [29,44,[66][67][68] and suicide risk [53,[69][70][71][72][73][74][75] and may contribute to the temporal cross-correlations we detected.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Temporal patterns of suicide and circulatory system disease-related mortality are inversely correlated in several countries

Kaufman

Fitzmaurice

2020

Preprint

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Background Nearly 800,000 suicides occur worldwide annually and suicide rates are increasing faster than population growth. Unfortunately, the pathophysiology of suicide remains poorly understood, which has hindered suicide prevention efforts. However, mechanistic clues may be found by studying effects of seasonality on suicide and other mortality causes. Suicides tend to peak in spring-summer periods and nadir in fall-winter periods while circulatory system disease-related mortality tends to exhibit the opposite temporal trends. This study aimed to determine for the first time whether monthly temporal cross-correlations exist between suicide and circulatory system disease-related mortality at the population level. If so and if common biological factors moderate risks for both mortality types, such factors may be discoverable and utilized to improve suicide prevention.Methods We conducted time series analyses of monthly mortality data from northern (England and Wales, South Korea, United States) and southern (Australia, Brazil) hemisphere countries during the period 2009-2018 (N=41.8 million all-cause mortality cases). We used a Poisson regression variant of the standard cosinor model to determine cross-correlations between monthly mortality rates from suicide and from circulatory system diseases.Results Suicide and circulatory disease-related mortality temporal patterns were negatively correlated in Australia (-0.32), Brazil (-0.57), South Korea (-0.32), and in the United States (-0.66), but no temporal correlation was discernable in England and Wales.Conclusions The negative temporal cross-correlations between these mortality types we found in 4 of 5 countries studied suggest that seasonal factors broadly and inversely moderate risks for circulatory disease-related mortality and suicide. Since the seasonal factors of temperature and light exert opposite effects on suicide and circulatory disease-related mortality in several countries, we propose that physiologically-adaptive circulatory system responses to heat and light may increase risk for suicide and should be studied to determine whether they affect suicide risk. For example, heat and light increase production and release of the bioactive gas nitric oxide and reduce circulatory system disease by relaxing blood vessel tone, while elevated nitric oxide levels are associated with suicidal behavior, inverse effects that parallel the inverse temporal mortality patterns we detected.

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Impact of Meteorological Factors on Suicide Attempts and Completed Suicides in Croatia, Osijek-Baranja County

Cited by 13 publications

References 15 publications

Short-term exposure to ambient temperature and the mortality burden of suicide in Japan

Short-term exposure to ambient temperature and the mortality burden of suicide in Japan

Meteorological Variables and Suicidal Behavior: Air Pollution and Apparent Temperature Are Associated With High-Lethality Suicide Attempts and Male Gender

Temporal patterns of suicide and circulatory system disease-related mortality are inversely correlated in several countries

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