Citation

Stoupel E, Abramson E, Sulkes J. Arch. Suicide Res. 1999; 5(3): 241-244.

Affiliation

Toor Heart Institute, Rabin Medical Center, Beilinson Campus, Petah Tiqva 49110, Israel.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1999, International Academy of Suicide Research, Publisher Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/13811119908258333

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Recent studies by our group have demonstrated a relationship between certain physical environmental factors and fluctuations in the monthly number of deaths (including suicides), first admission of psychiatric patients, and occurrences of some neurologic pathologies and serotonin-related clinical syndromes (Raps et al., 1991, 1992; Stoupel, 1992; Stoupel et al., 1995a, b; Stoupel et al., 1996, Stoupel et al., 1997). In the present work we investigated the length of delay between environmental changes and suicides. The monthly suicides in Israel over an eight-year period (1981-1989) were correlated with geomagnetic activity levels, hours of positive and negative ionization of the ionosphere, maximal and minimal indices of radiowave propagation, and space proton flux (>90 MeV), both in the month of each suicide and the preceding one or two months. The monthly number of suicides was obtained from the registry of the Central Bureau of Statistics of the State of Israel, and the cosmophysical data were obtained from the National Space Services Center and the National Geophysical Data Center, Boulder, CO, USA and the Izmiran Institute of the Academy of Sciences, Izmiran, CIS. Pearson correlation coefficients and their probabilities were calculated. A probability of p ≥ 0.05 was considered significant.