The Cost-Of-Living Crisis and Suicide Rates

Pirkis J 1 , Shin S 1 , Roberts L 1 , Arya V 1 , Agrest M 2 , Aguilar PA 3 Show all authors , Appleby L 4 , Arafat SMY 5 , Ardila-Gomez S 6 , Arensman E 7 , Ayuso-Mateos JL 8 , Singh Balhara YP 9 , Bandara P 10 , Bantjes J 11 , Baran A 12 , Behera C 13 , Bertolote J 14 , Bonanno D 15 , Borges G 16 , Bray M 17 , Brečić P 18 , Caine E 19 , Calati R 20 , Canal-Rivero M 21 , Carli V 22 , Castelpietra G 23 , Chan LF 24 , Chang SS 25 , Coss-Guzmán M 26 , Crompton D 27 , Curkovic M 28 , Dandona R 1 , De Jaegere E 29 , De Leo D 30 , Deisenhammer EA 31 , DelPozo-Banos M 32 , Denic N 33 , Dmetrichuk JM 34 , Dwyer J 35 , Eliasson E 22 , Erlangsen A 36 , Faust JS 37 , Fornaro M 38 , Fortune S 39 , Gentile G 40 , Geoffroy MC 41 , Gilissen R 42 , Gould M 43 , Hawton K 44 , Holz F 45 , Hong HI 46 , Ibrahim N 47 , Jaeger M 48 , John A 32 , Jong N 49 , Kapur N 50 , Kasal A 51 , Khan M 52 , Kirtley OJ 53 , Knipe D 10 , Kõlves K 54 , Kölzer SC 45 , Leske S 55 , Madeddu F 20 , Mais D 56 , Memon A 57 , Mittendorfer-Rutz E 58 , Moran L 59 , Nestadt P 60 , Niederkrotenthaler T 48 , Nielsen E 61 , Noor RK 47 , Nordentoft M 36 , Oberlerchner H 62 , O'Connor RC 63 , Papsdorf R 64 , Partonen T 65 , Phillips MR 66 , Portzky G 29 , Qin P 67 , Radeloff D 64 , Randell S 68 , Reif A 69 , Reif-Leonhard C 69 , Rezaeian M 70 , Richly P 71 , Román-Vázquez N 26 , Roskar S 72 , Sara G 49 , Scavacini K 73 , Schneider B 69 , Seidler IK 74 , Sinyor M 75 , Tambuzzi S 40 , San Too L 1 , Townsend E 76 , Tsiaplias S 77 , Ueda M 78 , Vasquez D 79 , Wasserman D 22 , Webb RT 80 , Winkler P 81 , Yip PSF 82 , Zalsman G 83 , Zoja R 40 , Spittal MJ 1

Affiliations 

  • 1 Centre for Mental Health and Community Wellbeing, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
  • 2 Research Unit, Proyecto Suma, Buenos Aires, Argentina
  • 3 Graduate Faculty, University of the Americas (UDLA), Quito, Ecuador
  • 4 National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Safety in Mental Health, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
  • 5 Department of Psychiatry, Bangladesh Specialized Hospital, Dhaka, Bangladesh
  • 6 Instituto de Investigaciones, Facultad de Psicología, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina
  • 7 School of Public Health, College of Medicine and Health, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland
  • 8 Department of Psychiatry, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
  • 9 National Drug Dependence Treatment Centre, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, India
  • 10 Population Health Sciences, Bristol Medical School, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
  • 11 Mental Health, Alcohol, Substance use and Tobacco Research Unit, South African Medical Research Council, Cape Town, South Africa
  • 12 Working Group on Prevention of Suicide and Depression at Public Health Council, Warsaw, Poland
  • 13 Department of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, India
  • 14 Botucatu Medical School, Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP), Botucatu, Brazil
  • 15 Instituto de Ciencias de la Salud, Universidad Nacional del Oeste, Buenos Aires, Argentina
  • 16 National Institute of Psychiatry Ramon de la Fuente Muñiz, Mexico City, Mexico
  • 17 Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA
  • 18 Department for Psychiatry, University Psychiatric Hospital Vrapče, Zagreb, Croatia
  • 19 University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, NY, USA
  • 20 Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy
  • 21 Mental Health Service, Hospital Universitario Virgen del Rocio, Seville, Spain
  • 22 National Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention, Department of Learning, Informatics, Management and Ethics (LIME), Karolinska Institutet, Solna, Sweden
  • 23 CNP - Centre Neuchâtelois de Psychiatrie, Site de Préfargier - CH-2074, Marin-Epagnier, Switzerland
  • 24 Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, Hospital Canselor Tuanku Muhriz, National University of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
  • 25 Institute of Health Behaviors and Community Sciences, College of Public Health, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
  • 26 Commission on Suicide Prevention, Puerto Rico Department of Health, San Juan, Puerto Rico
  • 27 Institute for Biomedicine and Glycomics, Griffith University, Gold Coast, QLD, Australia
  • 28 School of Medicine, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
  • 29 Flemish Centre of Expertise in Suicide Prevention, Department of Head and Skin, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
  • 30 Slovene Centre for Suicide Research, Primorska University, Portorož, Slovenia
  • 31 Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, Psychosomatics and Medical Psychology, Medical University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria
  • 32 National Centre for Suicide Prevention and Self-Harm Research, Swansea University, Swansea, UK
  • 33 Office of Chief Medical Examiner, St John, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada
  • 34 Office of the Chief Coroner -Ontario Forensic Pathology Service, Toronto, ON, Canada
  • 35 Coroners Prevention Unit, Coroners Court of Victoria, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
  • 36 Danish Research Institute for Suicide Prevention, Mental Health Centre Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
  • 37 Brigham and Women's Hospital Department of Emergency Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
  • 38 Department of Psychiatry, Federico II University of Naples, Italy
  • 39 School of Population Health, The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
  • 40 Institute of Forensic Medicine, Department of Biomedical Sciences for Health, University of Milan, Italy
  • 41 Department of Psychiatry, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada
  • 42 113 Suicide Prevention, Research Department, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
  • 43 Departments of Psychiatry and Epidemiology, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, New York City, NY, USA
  • 44 Centre for Suicide Research, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
  • 45 University Hospital, Institute of Legal Medicine, Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
  • 46 Korea Foundation for Suicide Prevention, Seoul, Republic of Korea
  • 47 National Centre of Excellence for Mental Health, Ministry of Health, Selangor, Malaysia
  • 48 Department of Public Mental Health, Center for Public Health, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
  • 49 System Information and Analytics Branch, System Sustainability and Performance Division, NSW Ministry of Health, St. Leonards, NSW, Australia
  • 50 Centre for Mental Health and Safety, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
  • 51 National Institute of Mental Health, Klecany, Czechia
  • 52 Brain and Mind Institute, Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan
  • 53 Center for Contextual Psychiatry, Department of Neurosciences, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
  • 54 Australian Institute for Suicide Research and Prevention, School of Applied Psychology, Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
  • 55 Poche Centre for Indigenous Health, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
  • 56 Data and Analysis for Social Care and Health Division, Office for National Statistics, Fareham, UK
  • 57 Department of Primary Care and Public Health, Brighton and Sussex Medical School, Brighton, UK
  • 58 Division of Insurance Medicine, Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
  • 59 Australian Bureau of Statistics, Canberra, Australia
  • 60 Center for Suicide Prevention, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA
  • 61 Faculty of Medicine and Health Science, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
  • 62 Institute of Clinical Psychology, Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis at the Alpe Adria University of Klagenfurt/Carinthia, Klagenfurt, Austria
  • 63 School of Health and Wellbeing, University of Glasgow, Scotland
  • 64 Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, University Hospital Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany
  • 65 Department of Healthcare and Social Welfare, Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, Helsinki, Finland
  • 66 Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai, China
  • 67 National Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention, Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
  • 68 Public Health Agency of Canada, Mount Pearl, NL, Canada
  • 69 Department of Psychiatry, Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, University Hospital Frankfurt, Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
  • 70 Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Occupational Environment Research Center, School of Health, Rafsanjan University of Medical Sciences, Rafsanjan, Iran
  • 71 Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry, Waikato Hospital, Hamilton, New Zealand
  • 72 National Institute of Public Health, Mental Health Center, Department of Mental Health Research and Development, Ljubljana, Slovenia
  • 73 Instituto Vita Alere, São Paulo, Brazil
  • 74 Center for Public Health in Greenland, National Institute of Public Health, University of Southern Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark
  • 75 Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
  • 76 School of Psychology, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
  • 77 Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
  • 78 Department of Public Administration and International Affairs, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, USA
  • 79 Grupo de Neurociencias de Antioquia, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Antioquia, Medellín, Colombia
  • 80 Division of Psychology and Mental Health, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
  • 81 WHO CC CZH-34, National Institute of Mental Health, Klecany, Czechia
  • 82 HKJC Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention, Department of Social Work and Social Administration, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, PR China
  • 83 Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel
Crisis, 2026 Oct 27.
PMID: 42935141 DOI: 10.1027/0227-5910/a001077

Abstract

Background: The cost-of-living crisis may be contributing to suicide rates, but this has not been adequately tested. Aims: We aimed to determine whether the cost-of-living crisis is associated with suicide rates in multiple countries and areas-within-countries. Method: We sourced country- and area-within-country-level monthly suicide data at a minimum from January 1, 2019, to December 31, 2022 (and at a maximum from January 1, 2016, to June 30, 2023), and population denominator and monthly headline consumer price index (CPI) data. We calculated the yearly change in inflation as the percentage change in CPI for one month versus the equivalent month in the previous year. We estimated associations between yearly change in inflation (lagged by one month) and suicide rates for each country and area-within-country, using autoregressive negative binomial regression. We summarized results using weighted means. Results: We obtained data on 1,372,994 suicides from 54 countries. At the country-level, for every 1.0% increase in yearly inflation in the previous month, there was an average 0.2% increase in suicide rates. The association was strongest in those aged 30-49 and 50-69; for every 1.0% increase in yearly inflation in the previous month, there were 0.3% and 0.6% increases in suicide rates for these age-groups, respectively. This pattern held for males in these age-groups, with increases of the same magnitude, and for females aged 50-69, with a 0.8% increase. At the area-within-country-level, the picture was even starker. Limitations: Study limitations include: the ecological design; the single measure of inflation; potential variations in suicide data quality; lack of representation by low-and-middle-income countries (LMICS); lack of availability of sex, age and sex/age breakdowns for some countries and areas-within-countries; and potential issues with multiple testing. Conclusions: There is an association between the cost-of-living crisis and suicide rates internationally. Public and social policies that improve people's circumstances are critical.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

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