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International Journal for Equity in Health
Published in: International Journal for Equity in Health 1/2015

Open Access 01-12-2015 | Research Article

Inequalities in suicide mortality rates and the economic recession in the municipalities of Catalonia, Spain

Authors: Carme Saurina, Manel Marzo, Marc Saez

Published in: International Journal for Equity in Health | Issue 1/2015

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Abstract

Introduction

While previous research already exists on the impact of the current economic crisis and whether it leads to an increase in mortality by suicide, our objective in this paper is to determine if the increase in the suicide rate in Catalonia, Spain from 2010 onwards has been statistically significant and whether it is associated with rising unemployment.

Methods

We used hierarchical mixed models, separately considering the crude death rate of suicides for municipalities with more than and less than 10,000 inhabitants as dependent variables both unstratified and stratified according to gender and/or age group.

Results

In municipalities with 10,000 or more inhabitants there was an increase in the relative risk of suicide from 2009 onwards. This increase was only statistically significant for working-aged women (16–64 years). In municipalities with less than 10,000 inhabitants the relative risk showed a decreasing trend even after 2009. In no case did we find the unemployment rate to be associated (statistically significant) with the suicide rate.

Conclusions

The increase in the suicide rate from 2010 in Catalonia was not statistically significant as a whole, with the exception of working-aged women (16–64 years) living in municipalities with 10,000 or more inhabitants. We have not found this increase to be associated with rising unemployment in any of the cases. Future research into the effects of economic recessions on suicide mortality should take into account inequalities by age, sex and size of municipalities.
Footnotes
1
The Spanish economy went into recession in the first quarter of 2009 after the GDP fell for two consecutive quarters. Although the Spanish economy emerged from this first recession in the first quarter of 2010, when GDP showed positive growth rates, it slipped back into recession in the last quarter of 2011 (double dip) and did not move out of recession until the third quarter of 2013.
 
2
A comarca can be considered equivalent to a county.
 
3
If there were more than one municipality with 10,000 inhabitants or more, we subtracted the number of suicides of all these municipalities.
 
4
Using a weighted average calculated using Tables 1 and 2 in Lopez-Bernal et al. [25].
 
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Metadata
Title
Inequalities in suicide mortality rates and the economic recession in the municipalities of Catalonia, Spain
Authors
Carme Saurina
Manel Marzo
Marc Saez
Publication date
01-12-2015
Publisher
BioMed Central
Published in
International Journal for Equity in Health / Issue 1/2015
Electronic ISSN: 1475-9276
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-015-0192-9

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