{"id":2429,"date":"2019-01-11T14:52:02","date_gmt":"2019-01-11T14:52:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/factcheckni.org\/?p=2429"},"modified":"2022-03-02T12:56:37","modified_gmt":"2022-03-02T12:56:37","slug":"do-more-men-die-by-suicide-in-northern-ireland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/factcheckni.org\/topics\/health\/do-more-men-die-by-suicide-in-northern-ireland\/","title":{"rendered":"Do more men die by suicide in Northern Ireland?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
This claim is accurate. For 2017, Northern Ireland had the highest rate in the UK (and Ireland) of registered deaths by suicide for men (29.1 per 100,000 men) (and women (8.5 per 100,000 women)). Also, the number of total suicides by year of actual occurrence in Northern Ireland for 2013 (306) is more than double that for 1995 (148).<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n On 19 December 2018, The Belfast Telegraph<\/a> reported that \u201cmore men die by suicide in Northern Ireland than anywhere else in the UK\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the article, Samaritans Ireland director, Cindy O’Shea, added that the number of women taking their own lives in Northern Ireland has reduced, but that the total suicide rate has increased, due to a rise in male suicide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In December 2018, Samaritans<\/a> published a report with the latest statistics for the UK and Ireland on suicide. The Northern Ireland figures in the report are based on data from Northern Ireland Statistic and Research Agency<\/a> (NISRA). The data confirm O\u2019Shea\u2019s claim: in 2017, there were 234 males (12 more than in 2016), and 71 females (5 fewer than in 2016) registered deaths by suicide, bringing the total to 305.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Suicide rate by country<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The most recent figures on male suicide rates in the UK are for the year 2017. Demographics vary across UK regions but age-standardised figures allow comparison between regional populations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For Northern Ireland, the suicide rate per 100,000 men in 2017 was 29.1, according to NISRA<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Suicide rates in the rest of the UK are reported by the Office for National Statistics<\/a> (ONS). The male suicide rate in 2017 was 22.1 per 100,000 in Scotland, 20.9 in Wales, and 14.0 in England. The Samaritans report included figures from the National Records of Scotland<\/a>, stating the suicide rate for Scotland at 19.9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n NISRA and ONS defined suicide as \u201cdeaths where the underlying cause is intentional self-harm and events of undetermined intent\u201d. The Central Statistics Office<\/a> collects data on suicide rates in Ireland, but here suicide only refers to deaths where the underlying cause is intentional self-harm and does not include events of undetermined intent. Because of this, we cannot directly compare data for Ireland with the UK, as Samaritans mention in their report<\/a>. Therefore, we have recalculated the suicide rates by adding up the deaths by \u2018intentional self-harm\u2019 and \u2018events of undetermined intent\u2019 for males<\/a> and females<\/a>, and divide this by the age-standardised male and female population<\/a> of 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The suicide rate per 100,000 of males and females in 2017 are summarised in the following table:<\/p>\n\n\n\n