A research group from Kyushu University, Chiba University, Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, and Miyazaki University succeeded in visualizing regional disparities in suicide that could be overlooked if judged on a prefecture-by-prefecture basis.It can serve as the basis for suicide countermeasure plans formulated jointly by prefectures and municipalities.
According to Kyushu University and others, the suicide rate and the standardized death rate (*1) are used as indices to assess the level of suicides in municipalities, but they have the disadvantage of large fluctuations in areas with small populations. .Therefore, the research group calculated the standardized death ratio that reduced the influence of population from the suicide statistical data from 2009 to 2018, and visualized regional disparities in suicide that tend to be overlooked when evaluated only by prefecture.
As a result, we found 26 areas nationwide where the standardized mortality ratio was high in prefectures but low in municipalities, and 40 areas where it was low in prefectures but high in municipalities.
The 2016 revision of the Basic Act on Suicide Countermeasures requires all prefectures and municipalities to formulate suicide countermeasure plans.The research group believes that the results of this survey can be used as basic materials for formulating plans for suicide countermeasures, and that they will serve as an opportunity to promote countermeasures according to the characteristics of each region.
*1 Standardized mortality ratio A method of applying the standard mortality rate (number of deaths per 10 population) to the target area and comparing the number of deaths calculated and the number of deaths actually observed.If the number is 100 or more, it is judged that the mortality rate is higher than the national average.
Paper information:[PLOS Global Public Health] Spatial statistical analysis of regional disparities in suicide among policy units in Japan: Using the Bayesian hierarchical model
