Sunday, October 18, 2009

Country Suicide Rates by Latitudinal distance from the Equator

Recent studies have shown that latitude is one influencing factor of a country's suicide rate. So I took the latest suicide rates per 100,000 males on Wikipedia and plotted them by mean latitudinal distance from the equator. Although there is a lot of variability in the data there does seem to be some influencing factors on suicide rates depending how far north or south of the equator a particular country is. For example, Alaska has the highest suicide rate in the US. The results of these studies also show that suicide rates peak in June and dip in December in the Northern hemisphere and peak in December and dip in June in the Southern hemisphere.






Here is the raw data:

Country
Mean Latitude
Male Suicide Rate
Ecuador
2
10.4
Colombia
4
8.9
Suriname
4
17.8
Guyana
5
33.8
Venezuela
8
8.4
Panama
9
11.1
Peru
10
1.1
Brazil
10
6.8
Costa Rica
10
10.6
Trinidad
11
20.9
Barbados
13
1.4
Philippines
13
2.5
Saint Vincent
13
6.8
El Slvador
13
10.3
Saint Lucia
13
10.4
Nicaragua
13
11.1
Guatemala
15
3.4
Thailand
15
12
Belize
17
13.4
Peurto Rico
18
10.9
Dominican Rep
19
2.9
Zimbabwe
20
10.6
India
20
12.2
Mauritius
20
13.2
Cuba
21
18.6
Singapore
22
12.9
Hong Kong
22
22
Paraguay
23
4.5
Mexico
23
7
Bahamas
24
6
Bahrain
26
4.9
Australia
27
17.1
Kuwait
29
2.5
South Africa
29
25.3
Chile
30
17.8
Israel
31
10.4
Uruguay
33
24.5
Argentina
34
14.1
Malta
35
7
China
35
13
Japan
36
34.8
South Korea
37
29.6
USA
38
17.7
Turkey
39
2.3
Tajikistan
39
2.9
Greece
39
5.9
Portugal
39
17.5
Azerbaijan
40
1.8
Armenia
40
3.2
Spain
40
12
Turkmenistan
40
13.8
Albania
41
4.7
Ukbekistan
41
8.1
Macedonia
41
9.5
Kyrgyzstan
41
15.3
New Zealand
41
20.3
Georgia
42
3.4
Italy
42
11
Bulgaria
43
19.7
Bosnia
44
20.3
Serbia
44
28.4
Croatia
45
30.5
Romania
46
21.5
France
46
26.4
Slovenia
46
42.1
Switzerland
47
24.7
Austria
47
24.7
Moldova
47
31.5
Hungary
47
42.3
Slovakia
48
22.3
Kazakhstan
48
45
Luxembourg
49
17.7
Czech Republic
49
35.5
Ukraine
49
40.9
Belgium
50
31.2
Germany
51
19.7
Netherlands
52
12.7
Poland
52
27.8
Ireland
53
16.3
Belarus
53
63.3
UK
54
10.4
Denmark
56
19.2
Lithuania
56
68.1
Latvia
57
42
Estonia
59
35.5
Canada
60
17.3
Russia
60
58.1
Norway
62
15.7
Sweden
62
19.5
Finland
64
31.1
Iceland
65
16.2

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