Suicide rate rises in hot weather

[Beorn]

The damp summer may have made us all miserable, but research suggests it is hot weather that poses a far more serious problem for vulnerable people.

A team from London's Institute of Psychiatry found that suicide rates go up during hot weather.
Analysis of more than 50,000 suicides in England and Wales between 1993 and 2003 showed the suicide rate rose when average daily temperatures topped 18C.

The study appears in the British Journal of Psychiatry.
The researchers found that once the daily average temperature rose above 18C each further degree increase was associated with a rise in suicides of almost 4%.
The rate in the rise of violent suicides was even higher, at 5% per degree rise in temperature.

Aggression and irritability

Researcher Dr Lisa Page said there were a number of possible reasons for the link between hot weather and suicide.
She said: "We felt overall that the most likely explanation was probably a psychological one where for some people you have an unusually high degree of irritability, aggression and impulsivity."
She said it was possible that the effect was linked to levels of the mood-controlling chemical serotonin in the brain, which have been shown to dip in the summer months.

Alternatively, the suicide rate may be linked to the tendency to consume higher levels of alcohol in hot weather.
However, she said the finding was unlikely to be down to people being made miserable by seeing others enjoying the good weather, as the effect was specific to unusually hot days, rather than summer days in general.
The researchers found that the suicide rate rose by 46.9% during the 1995 heat wave.

A similar run of hot weather in 2003 appeared to have little impact, possibly because high temperatures came in two distinct spells, giving people a chance to adapt.
During the 11-year period covered by the research, the average temperature in England topped 18C on 222 days.
There were 53,623 suicides - an average of 13.3 per day.
Three-quarters of all suicides were by men and this proportion remained constant over the study period.
The highest daily suicide count was recorded for 1 January.
The largest number of suicides took place on Mondays, with numbers declining as the week wore on.

Source

[Lenny]

This has me very..confused.

Alternatively, the suicide rate may be linked to the tendency to consume higher levels of alcohol in hot weather.

But do people really drink slightly more based on whether it is 22C over 21C? How would each temperature tick mark see a rise in suicides based on alcohol?

And what's with the effect beginning at 18C? That's *not* unpleasant weather, at all. I think the range Europeans start getting uncomfortably hot begins at 25C ... below that and we enjoy it. So, this all makes no sense at all, to me.


If I understand it correctly, the conventional-wisdom that sucidies go up in winter still holds, in general. These mini-spikes on very hot days are anomalies in otherwise suicide-free summers.

[Beorn]

Could be the length of exposure to the sunlight. Greenland being the extreme example of this.

ScienceDaily (May 10, 2009) — Suicide rates in Greenland increase during the summer, peaking in June. Researchers speculate that insomnia caused by incessant daylight may be to blame.

[Lenny]

insomnia caused by incessant daylight may be to blame.

England doesn't quite qualify as a "midnight sun" land, tho.

Greenland is very far north (a large share lives above the Arctic Circle, the rest live but a few degrees shy of it);

[Lenny]

About insomnia- I recall seeing a Norwegian movie of that title ("Insomnia" [the English title]). It's about a Swedish detective from down south who is sent up to far-northern Norway to investigate a murder during the summer. I can't remember the specifics but he ends up unable to sleep night after night, because of the perpetual sunshine at all hours at that latitude. He begins to go insane and engage in bizarre behaviors. I think he may have killed himself at the end, but I can't remember.

[Beorn]

I've not seen the Norwegian movie, but I did see the remake(?) with Al Pacino.

Insomnia

[Treffie]

This has me very..confused.


But do people really drink slightly more based on whether it is 22C over 21C? How would each temperature tick mark see a rise in suicides based on alcohol?

I'm not sure what the connection is either, but what annoys me is when the heat and the sunshine eventually arrives, Brits have a tendency to consume copious amounts of alcohol.

[Lenny]

when the heat and the sunshine eventually arrives, Brits have a tendency to consume copious amounts of alcohol.

Why is social interaction so strongly tied to alcohol in Britain? Much moreso than in the USA, it seems to me. (I have never been to Britain, but this is my impression).


It's definitely true that (overuse of) alcohol is a terrible scourge on mankind.
I'm really glad I have never been much of a drinker, never "taken it up" as a daily or semi-daily habit; and that I have no alcoholics at all in my extended family.

[SwordoftheVistula]

Why is social interaction so strongly tied to alcohol in Britain? Much moreso than in the USA, it seems to me. (I have never been to Britain, but this is my impression).

It is more common there-especially on a weekend I saw hordes of drunk people running around London by 8pm.

Why? Some factors might be:

History of Puritanical/Temperance movements in the US, many American born religions don't allow alcohol.

Higher drinking age (21 vs 18) combined with the above.

Reliance on the automobile for transportation and 'dont drink&drive' campaigns and laws.

Greater usage of marijuana and harder drugs in social interaction in the US. This is just an anecdotal observation, I don't know the actual statistics of usage.

[Lenny]

There was an article somewhere hereabouts a few months back claiming that Britain's alcohol intake has something like doubled since 1950.

So instead of looking to American morality from the 1600s, one might (also) look to the idiotic, pointless 1914-1945 European civil wars that broke people's existential optimism, and eventually caused a downward spiral into nihilism in those who were socialized after 1945 (i.e., Baby Boomers and beyond)? Ironically, Britain itself happened to be the "winner" in both wars, too.