17th suicide in Bridgend

[BBKing]

You need to break out male and female rates, since the age distribution and actual numbers are so vastly different as to make lumping them together dubious. How many of the 17 are female, incidentally?

By the way, Pierre, did you check Scotland in there? Way, way higher than Wales or England - Glasgow's the worst place in the country.

[handyman]

Originally Posted by Damien

The 17 deaths are from January 2007, not 2008. So it's been a year and a bit.

Also its 22 per 100,000 not 18. (average, the women and men need to be added together) Not sure if it's the same for wales or higher)

Also this is 17 Young people and it makes no mention of the other suicides in other age groups. Its also pretty odd for so many to be hangings.

From my limited (and probably wrong) experience girls tend to OD or cut whilst blokes tend to hang.

Originally Posted by handyman

Also this is 17 Young people and it makes no mention of the other suicides in other age groups. Its also pretty odd for so many to be hangings.

From my limited (and probably wrong) experience girls tend to OD or cut whilst blokes tend to hang.

Yes but the population os actually 138,00. The time scale is a extra month. The news reports include areas around bridgend. So I suspect that is around 17 young people.

[Derek]

Originally Posted by handyman

From my limited (and probably wrong) experience girls tend to OD or cut whilst blokes tend to hang.

Being utterly brutal about it there are two types of suicide. A 'proper' attempt and a cry for help type. Hangings unfortunately tend to work.

I know thats a massive generalization but thats the way it is.

Originally Posted by BBKing

By the way, Pierre, did you check Scotland in there? Way, way higher than Wales or England - Glasgow's the worst place in the country.

Yep and if they could see the devastation they leave behind I'm sure they'd think twice. I've already been at one funeral this year from a suicide and it's by fr the worst emotionally I've had to experience.

OK, Checked wales.

Those aged between 15 to 44 is 26.8 (men) Women is 5.5. per 100,000 young people.

much higher. Given that the rates with both included for a population of 138,00 and surrounding areas is 17 for a year a bit between 15 - 25.

I would say it's on par.

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by Damien

The 17 deaths are from January 2007, not 2008. So it's been a year and a bit.

Also its 22 per 100,000 not 18. (average, the women and men need to be added together) Not sure if it's the same for wales or higher)

Sorry,

My fault, not reading the info properly.

Jan 2007.............. in that case I respectfully withdraw the tripe I posted earlier.

Move away now...............nothing to to see here

[Russ]

This is really odd. I work in Bridgend now, it's a pretty affluent area and no-one seems to have any idea what's going on.

[BBKing]

One snippet of information - Hungary had the worst suicide rate in the world, but it actually went down after the end of Communism, despite economic turmoil and massive unemployment. The difference, apparently, was better provision of mental health services, so perhaps we should be looking there?

If there is an underlying problem that has not up until now been addressed then I find it terrible that it has taken 17 young lives for it to be picked up.

[BBKing]

The Independent has a list of the 17, and the first 12 are male. The last five are four female and one male, which is statistically unusual*, but not taken across the sample as a whole, since the national figures about 75% male, 25% female for 15-44 year olds, so 12/17 (71%) and 5/17 (29%) are near enough, so I was wrong about it being disproportionately female, it had been disproportionately male until the start of 2008.

* However, in any random series you get clusters, but you also get regression to the mean which cancels them out in the long run

Monthly totals, to see if there's a rising pattern (second figure is the five-month rolling average, a useful trick to spot whether a trend is real)

Jan - 1
Feb - 2
Mar - 0
Apr - 1
May - 1 - 1
Jun - 1 - 1
Jul - 0 - 0.6
Aug - 2 - 1
Sep - 1 - 1
Oct - 0 - 0.8
Nov - 1 - 0.8
Dec - 1 - 1
Jan - 2 - 1
Feb - 3 - 1.4

so if there's an increase it's since the media coverage started, suggesting that it has possibly had an influence.

The differences are small enough to suggest normal activity though. There may be slightly higher males but not enough to suggest a unsual trend.

Well I'm sure 17 families will be comforted by the stats...

[tweetypie/8]

Originally Posted by iglu

Here Very sad...

tragic loss of young lives,where does it all end.

[BBKing]

Well I'm sure 17 families will be comforted by the stats...

I doubt they'd be comforted by anything at the moment, certainly not the faux-emotional press attention. This is a time for thoughtfulness, not remote empathy. Too much of that in the UK, and it's entirely pointless.

[Russ]

There's talk in the town that a production company is interested in doing some sort of film about the suicides. It might be some sort of documentary, or a conspiracy-type affair, who knows..