SENTINEL WATCH September 24, 2007 Issue

HELP AGAINST THE PULL OF SUICIDE

RUTH WALKER

THE ECONOMIST offered a whirlwind tour of global heartbreak a few weeks ago, with a survey article on suicide trends around the world (see "Elusive, but not always unstoppable," June 2007, pp. 66-67). In India, farmers are burdened by debt and university students are crushed by disappointing exam results. In Japan, "anonymous losers" are willing to commit suicide in groups, in hopes of finding in death the meaningful human connections that have eluded them in life. In rural China, desperate women feel they have, evidently, better access to agricultural poisons than to anything that would give their lives meaning. The bottom line: Worldwide, suicide rates are up 60 percent over the past 45 years, and a million people die at their own hands every year.

How can we help?

Often discussions on suicide focus on the signs of depression that people should be alert to in their own circles of friends and family. In this case, the article was concerned with the bigger picture: suicide as a global public policy issue. What should governments be doing? Different ideas were suggested: shutting down suicide chat rooms on the Internet, expanding mental health services, dissauding news organizations from glamorizing celebrity suicides.

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