Citation

Kolves K, Mathieu S, Fleischmann A. Lancet Reg. Health West. Pac. 2022; 19: e100367.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.lanwpc.2021.100367

PMID

35024672

PMCID

PMC8733172

Abstract

An estimated 703,000 people died by suicide in 2019 globally with approximately one-quarter occurring in the Western Pacific Region (WPR).1 Many more attempt suicide or endure ideation, and impact further extends to people bereaved by suicide and/or carers. Tailored, national suicide prevention strategies should focus on restricting access to means of suicide, responsible media communication of suicidal behaviours, boosting resilience and coping skills among youth, and early identification and culturally appropriate intervention with individuals, groups and communities at risk of suicidal behaviours.2 This relies upon establishing and maintaining surveillance systems to provide accurate and timely national and local information on suicide and self-harm.2 However, this is hard to achieve in practice and requires substantial departmental collaboration, prioritisation, and funding.2,3 Furthermore, the WPR is a particularly diverse region, with vast differences in the size of land mass, populations, and economies of countries, as well as sociodemographic characteristics and cultural-linguistic backgrounds. Consequently, the quality of suicide surveillance systems vary greatly across the region,3 and even more so when considering reliable high quality surveillance systems of self-harm.4 Enhancing the quality of existing surveillance systems and establishing new systems (especially for self-harm) is essential for suicide prevention in the region and will increase understanding of local risk and protective factors and facilitate the evaluation of suicide prevention activities...

Language: en