China sees 287,000 suicides/year, according to the nation's first
ever large-scale suicide survey released on November 26.
Starting from 1995, Beijing's Huilongguan Hospital, under the
support of Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention,
conducted the biggest suicide survey at 23 representative
supervision stations known in China, putting to an end to the
nation's history of lacking systematic and authoritative suicide
statistics and analysis.
China's first medical body serving the suicidal population-Beijing
Mental Crisis and Interference Center-will be set up at the
Hunlongguan Hospital on December 3.
Fifth biggest cause of death
Among the most fatal causes of deaths in China between 1995 and
1999, suicide ranked the fifth, next only to cerebral vascular
disease, bronchitis and chronic pulmonary emphysema, liver cancer
and pneumonia. It was furthermore the biggest death cause among the
population aged between 15 and 34, according to the survey
released.
The national average suicide rate is 23/100,000, with 287,000
people died of it each year. On a national scale, suicidal death
took up 3.6 percent of total death numbers and 19 percent of the
deaths of the corresponding population. The suicide rate for female
turned out 25 percent higher than that of male and the rural rate
three times that of the urban one. Suicide has become an urgent
problem to be solved in the field of public health.
Compared with other countries, China's comparatively high suicide
rate displays its own characters. The rural rate is three times
that of the urban one, that is, 90 percent suicides happen in rural
areas. And China is the only country that reports higher female
suicide rate than male, particularly among young women in rural
areas, while in developed countries the rate for male is at least
three times that of female. What's more, in other countries 90
percent suicide population suffers from mental disorders, while in
China the rate is much lower.
(People's Daily November 29, 2002)