Changing Suicide Trends: A Shift in Regional Disparities Across the UK

In 2023, suicide rates in England & Wales reached their highest levels since 1999. Despite changes in legal definitions and registration methods impacting trends, this increase reflects growing individual suffering.

International comparisons suggest that while the UK saw a 12% rise in suicide rates between 1999 and 2020, many other European countries experienced significant declines; with rates falling overall in the EU-27, and especially for people aged 50-54 and a littel older and younger than that.

We used publicly available data from the Office for National Statistics on suicide rates from 1981 to 2023, by sex and geographical region in England & Wales. We conducted descriptive and statistical analyses with the Joinpoint regression programme to identify significant discontinuities in trends in suicide rates.

INTRODUCTION

The August 2024 Statistical Bulletin from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) opened with a stark warning. In 2023, suicide rates in England and Wales reached “the highest rate seen since 1999”. For females, whose rates have consistently been much lower than males, one had to look back even further, to 1994, for a higher rate.

Inevitably, caution is needed. These data relate to year of registration, not of death, and recorded suicides increased in 2018 following a change in the legal definition. Yet, notwithstanding these caveats, these numbers testify to widespread suffering among those who die from suicide and those left behind.

International comparisons are problematic due to extensive missing data and, especially, differences in reporting, some of which are cultural. So, comparisons of levels should be avoided, but comparing trends over time between countries results in fewer such problems. Data reported to WHO show a 12% increase between 1999 and 2020 in the United Kingdom (UK) but falls in almost all EU member states for which complete data are available. For example, Spain, Denmark, and Finland, respectively, saw falls of 4%, 35%, and 45%.

The exceptions are Greece and The Netherlands, with 12% and 4% increases respectively. The European experience thus indicates that the UK has been, with Greece, an outlier over the past two decades (see Supplementary material, and note Greece suffer great austerity after 2008).

The first graph below shows the longer term trend for England and Wales by age as compared to EU27 more recently.

Data used to draw the figure above.

The second graph below zooms in on the trend for England and Wales by age taht can be compared to EU27 more recently.

Comparison over time of Suicide rates: Source: Suicides in England and Wales from the Office for National Statistics, and from Eurostat, for the period 2012 to 2023.

The above graph shows Comparison over time of Suicide rates and is based on two sources: Suicides in England and Wales from the Office for National Statistics, and the equivalent data from from Eurostat, but the later is only for the period 2012 to 2023. Note the caveats in the full paper. However the definaions do not change greatly over time and so the trends over time are likely to be robust

Also note: Eurostat. Suicide death rate by age group. Accessed 7th October, 2024. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/tps00202/default/table?lang=en

And: Office for National Statistics. Suicides in England and Wales: 2023 Registrations. Accessed 3rd September, 2024. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/suicidesintheunitedkingdom/2023#suicide-patterns-by-age

The full paper gives more details of trends by region and for Wales within England and Wales and highlights how it has been in the last decade, or so, that the trend in England and Wales worsened as compared to that in the EU 27 (the 27 countries of the EU once the UK had left). The EU-27 at no point includes the UK.

For A PDF of the paper this post is based on and the supplementary material click here.