Rajkumar Ravi Philip
Department of Psychiatry, Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research, Puducherry, India.
Front Sociol. 2023 Mar 31;8:1123284. doi: 10.3389/fsoc.2023.1123284. eCollection 2023.
Ever since the pioneering work of Emile Durkheim, it has been known that regional or national suicide rates can be influenced by a variety of social and economic factors. Recent research has found a robust association between two country-level economic indices-gross national product and unemployment rate-and suicide rates, particularly in men. However, the association between other country-level social indices-such as measures of social integration, inequality, environmental preservation and political freedom-and suicide rates has not been studied at the cross-national level. In the current study, national suicide rates for men and women were examined in relation to seven indices measuring subjective wellbeing, sustainable development, type of political regime, economic and gender inequality, and social capital. It was found that the Happy Planet Index, a composite measure of subjective wellbeing and sustainable development, was negatively associated with suicide rates independent of gender, and even after adjusting for possible confounding factors. Economic inequality was associated with suicide in men, and social capital was associated with suicide in women. Moreover, the strength and direction of the associations observed between socioeconomic indices and suicide varied across income groups. These results highlight the need for a closer evaluation of the link between large-scale ("macro") social factors and individual ("micro") psychological factors, as well as the importance of integrating these factors into suicide prevention programmes at the national level.
自从埃米尔·涂尔干的开创性研究以来，人们就已经知道，地区或国家的自杀率会受到各种社会和经济因素的影响。最近的研究发现，两个国家层面的经济指标——国民生产总值和失业率——与自杀率之间存在着紧密的关联，尤其是在男性中。然而，其他国家层面的社会指标，如社会融合、不平等、环境保护和政治自由等指标与自杀率之间的关联尚未在跨国层面进行研究。在当前的研究中，研究了男性和女性的国家自杀率与七个衡量主观幸福感、可持续发展、政治制度类型、经济和性别不平等以及社会资本的指标之间的关系。研究发现，幸福星球指数，即主观幸福感和可持续发展的综合衡量指标，与自杀率呈负相关，且不受性别影响，甚至在调整了可能的混杂因素之后也是如此。经济不平等与男性自杀有关，社会资本与女性自杀有关。此外，社会经济指标与自杀之间观察到的关联强度和方向在不同收入群体中有所不同。这些结果凸显了更密切评估大规模（“宏观”）社会因素与个体（“微观”）心理因素之间联系的必要性，以及将这些因素纳入国家层面自杀预防计划的重要性。
