Health | Suicide rate hits the lowest in 10-years

The suicide rate in the territory has hit the lowest level since 2005, the Health Bureau (SSM) informed in a statement.
According to data cited, the suicide rate amongst residents of Macau in 2015 has decreased by 15.8 percent year-on-year when compared to 2014. This result is not only the lowest in the last four years, but also the lowest since 2005- the year in which a monitoring system to register such occurrences was implemented.
The results were presented on Saturday, September 10, precisely on the day known as World Suicide Prevention Day by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Association for Suicide Prevention.
According to the data from SSM, there were a total of 62 cases of suicide, 53 of them involving Macau residents recorded in 2015.
The phenomenon has a higher incidence on men (almost two-fold) compared to those involving women.
Considering the same data, the overall suicide rate in the territory was of 9.6 per 100,000 people, a value that gets lower if considered only the Macau residents (8.2 per 100,000 people).
Although Macau does not belong to the regions with a high prevalence of suicide, the SSM also noted that it is expected that in the future there will be increasingly more people with mental health status considered in “sub-health,” and this happens mostly due to rapid and successive changes of society and in particular to excess of stress in their daily lives.
According to the WHO, over 800,000 people commit suicide worldwide every year, bringing the worldwide suicide rate of 11.4 per 100,000 people.  RM