Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization (IDE-JETRO), Chiba, Japan.
PLoS One. 2020 Oct 28;15(10):e0240487. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0240487. eCollection 2020.
After the seminal work of Durkheim (1897), many subsequent studies have revealed a decline in suicide rates during wartime. However, their main focus was inter-state wars and whether the same argument holds for civil conflicts within a country is an important unresolved issue in the modern world. Moreover, the findings of the previous studies are not conclusive due to unobserved confounding factors. This study investigated the relationship between civil war and suicide rate through a more rigorous statistical approach using the Sri Lankan civil war as a case study. For this purpose, we employed a linear regression model with district and year fixed effects to estimate a difference-in-difference in the suicide rate between the peacetime and wartime periods as well as the contested and non-contested districts. The results indicate that the suicide rate in the contested districts in the wartime was significantly lower than the baseline by 11.8-14.4 points (95% CI 6.46-17.22 and 7.21-21.54, respectively), which corresponds to a 43-52% decline. The robustness of the possible confounding factors was analyzed and not noted to have so much effect as to alter the interpretation of the results. This finding supports the Durkheimian theory, which places importance on social integration as a determinant of suicide, even for civil conflicts.
在涂尔干（Durkheim）（1897 年）的开创性工作之后，许多后续研究揭示了战争期间自杀率的下降。然而，它们的主要关注点是国家间战争，对于一个国家内部的内战是否存在同样的情况，这是现代世界一个重要的未解决问题。此外，由于未观察到混杂因素，先前研究的结果并不具有结论性。本研究通过更严格的统计方法，以斯里兰卡内战为例，研究了内战与自杀率之间的关系。为此，我们采用了带有地区和年份固定效应的线性回归模型，以估计和平时期和战争时期以及争议地区和非争议地区之间自杀率的差异。结果表明，战争时期争议地区的自杀率比基线低 11.8-14.4 个百分点（95%CI 6.46-17.22 和 7.21-21.54），这相当于 43-52%的下降。对可能存在的混杂因素的稳健性进行了分析，并没有发现这些因素的影响足以改变对结果的解释。这一发现支持了涂尔干的理论，即社会融合作为自杀的决定因素的重要性，即使是对于内战也是如此。
