Suicide Mortality and Economic Fructuation Factors. Results of Multiple Regression Analysis / 日本農村医学会雑誌

ABSTRACT

The rates of suicide to all deaths, or suicide mortality rates in Japan, observed in time series, show cyclic changes with high and low rates occurring alternately throughout the pre-and post-war periods. The number of suicides correlates to changes in social environment. It was on a high level during the pre-war panic age of rural communities (1932-1933), recorded an extraordinary low value during the Second World War, rose suddenly with the unprecedented prosperity of post-war days, dropped gradually as the Japanese economy was entering a stable, growth period (in the latter half of 1960's), remained at a relatively low rate after that, and went up sharply in 1983 and posed a social problem.<BR>In Japan, suicide mortality is higher in agricultural districts than in urban areas, and is higher among full-time farmers than part-time farmers. In developed countries in the West, it is higher in big cities. This difference is remarkable.<BR>We performed a multiple regression analysis to examine the relationship of suicide mortality and some socio-economic factors using data in 1985 when suicide mortality was still on a high level. The age-adjusted suicide mortality of each prefecture was given as an object variable and the explanatory variables included such socio-economic factors as income index per capita and mobility ratio of each prefecture. Added to these were the number of persons who died of illness and the number of psychotics as indices of desease and psychopathy which could be regarded, as the main motives for committing suicide.<BR>The outcome was that a multiple regression formula with the social economic factors held as an estimator. The two facors, per capita income index and social mobility ratio, were significant explanatory variables, and proved to be important social economic elements concerning the sharp increase in suicide mortality.