Of those, 60 countries are deemed by WHO to have good quality vital statistics on suicide, and 28 countries have a national strategy for suicide prevention.īut some countries don’t even officially register births and deaths. “We can say that there are 90 countries who report on an annual basis on suicide,” says Alexandra Fleischmann, a project coordinator for WHO’s “Preventing Suicide” report, based on the same statistics used in the organization’s adolescent report. Each year, WHO asks its 194 member nations to report on causes of death for their population. But the organization stands by the data as an accurate representation of suicide. WHO acknowledges gaping holes in some nations’ vital statistics along with cultural taboos that often seek to cover up suicide as a cause of death. Numbers on suicide are not easy to compile. “Clearly, Southeast Asia is the predominant driver.” The rate there is about five times higher than in Europe or the Americas. “Those numbers make peoples’ heads turn,” says Petroni. There, the rate of death by suicide is 27.92 per every 100,000 females between 15 and 19, more than twice the global rate in that group. The suicide statistic is propelled by extraordinarily high rates in Southeast Asia, a WHO-designated region that includes Bangladesh, Bhutan, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, India, Indonesia, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Timor-Leste. But the trend wasn’t noticed until the release of the 2014 report. It’s also worth noting that suicide in the 15-to-19 age range already had passed maternal deaths by the year 2000 by fractions of percentage points. Rates of suicide have also been dropping in that same time period, but the rate is still high enough to outpace maternal mortality among females 15 to 19. And in the age range of 15 to 19, the rate of death from maternal conditions fell from 15.74 per 100,000 in 2000 to 9.72 in 2012. The number of women dying from pregnancy and childbirth complications has dropped for women of all ages by almost 50 percent between 19, according to WHO. What it does reflect is a bit of good news: Maternal mortality has been dropping. But when the term ends up in a column labeled “mortality” in a WHO report, it means suicide.īut curiously, the shift doesn’t reflect a sudden increase in self-harm. The number one cause of death around the world for older teen girls had shifted from maternal mortality to “self-harm.” Self-harm can refer to any form of violence to oneself: cutting, drug overdosing. Petroni checked and rechecked, even made some phone calls to friends at WHO, and confirmed that it was true. That finding made headlines around the world last month after it was cited at a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation event. “The number one cause of death had changed,” she says. “I read the report, and there was one line tucked away,” says Petroni. Then, in September, 2014, the World Health Organization released its report on “Health for the World’s Adolescents: A Second Chance in the Second Decade.” For years, Suzanne Petroni, senior director at the International Center for Research on Women, would speak - backed by mountains of evidence she studies - about the number one cause of death among women around the world: maternal mortality.
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