INSERM. France: A study conducted by Inserm’s Centre for Epidemiology on Medical Causes of Death (CépiDc) and the Paris public hospital system (AP-HP) highlights an association between suicide rate and unemployment in metropolitan France between 2000 and 2010.
The statistical model actually reveals a mean 1.5% increase in suicide rate, both sexes combined, for a 10% increase in unemployment rate.
This association is clearer in men aged 25-49 years, for whom the rise
in unemployment has been accompanied by a 2.6% increase in suicide rate.
Published last Tuesday in Bulletin Épidémiologique Hebdomadaire
(BEH), a weekly epidemiological bulletin published by InVS (French
Institute for Public Health Surveillance), this work is based on suicide
mortality data compiled by CépiDc in France between 2000 and 2010. The
latter were cross-correlated with the corresponding unemployment rates
for the quarter and region.
The researchers, however, make it clear that no cause and effect relationship can be deduced from these results, and recall the importance of individual circumstances (environmental factors, psychiatric profiles of individuals, etc.).