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Abstract
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The number of people who died by suicide in Brazil in 2020 declined overall despite the country being one of the worst affected in the world by the covid-19 pandemic, a study by the country's leading public health institute has found.1
But the unexpected decrease in suicides in the general population was accompanied by a sharp rise among elderly people and in the poorest and worst affected regions.
Epidemiologists at Fiocruz, a research institute attached to Brazil's Ministry of Health, had expected to see an increase in suicides because of the many stressors caused by the pandemic, as Brazil's total of 662 000 covid deaths was the second highest in the world, after the US. But when they examined excess deaths from March to December 2020 they found that suicides, which have been roughly stable over the past two decades, had decreased.
Their findings, published in the International Journal of Social Psychiatry,1 follow studies in other countries that also found decreased suicide rates during the height of the pandemic. In the UK the number of suicides in 2020 was lower than in 2019 despite strict lockdowns being implemented to slow the transmission of SARS-CoV-2.2
The fall in the general number of suicides in Brazil early in the pandemic was driven by a decrease among people aged under 30: suicide rates in those aged 10-29 fell by 19%. The authors hypothesise that fewer suicides were seen in the youngest demographic because they were less affected psychologically than older populations by the pandemic...
Language: en |