Suicide Rates Drop Worldwide yet Increase 24 percent Among Brazilian Teens

By Xiu Ying, Contributing Reporter

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – A Study from UNIFESP (Federal University of São Paulo) says that while suicide rates are falling worldwide, numbers have increased by 24 percent among adolescents living in large Brazilian cities between 2006 and 2015.

The study, published in the Brazilian Journal of Psychiatry, indicates that suicide is up to three times higher among young males.

They point the popularization of the internet, social changes in the country and lack of public policies in suicide prevention as the main reasons for this increase.

According to the study, suicide among youngsters between 10 and 19 years of age increased 24 percent in the six largest Brazilian cities: Porto Alegre, Recife, Salvador, Belo Horizonte, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, while growing 13 percent inland.

This increase contrasts with worldwide suicide rates which dropped 17 percent over the same period.

“We are against the odds,” says Elson Asevedo, one of the authors of the study and psychiatrist at EPM (Escola Paulista de Medicina).

“By 2013, the WHO (World Health Organization) has defined as a global imperative that its signatories reduce these rates by up to 10 percent by 2020.”

In February, the Global Burden of Disease project reported that the suicide rate dropped from 16.6 to 12 deaths per 100,000 people worldwide in the last three decades, a 32.7 percent reduction.

In Brazil, the city with the highest suicide rate is Belo Horizonte: 3.13 for every 100 thousand inhabitants in 2015, followed by Porto Alegre (2.93), São Paulo (2.44), Rio de Janeiro (1.52), Recife (1.23) and Salvador (0.23). On average, the increase in the index was 24 percent, rising from 1.60 to 1.99 between 2006 and 2015.

Altogether, 20,445 adolescents have taken their own lives in that period.