Spatial-temporal evolution of suicide mortality risk in mainland Spain (1999-2018)

Abstract

Background: Suicide is a major health problem, whose underlying reasons and spatial-temporal risk patterns are not well understood. This ecological study aims to describe and characterize the spatiotemporal patterns of suicide in mainland Spain during the period 1999-2018. Methods: Data on mortality from suicide and population at the provincial level were obtained from the National Institute of Statistics. For each year, province, and sex, we analysed the smoothed relative risks (RRs) of suicide mortality using Bayesian hierarchical models. Results: During the study period there were 63,307 suicide deaths, 47,849 in men and 15,458 in women.The risk of suicide throughout the study period is above the national average for both sexes in the provinces of Granada, La Coruña, Lugo and Asturias. In men, this also happens in Jaen. Men in Madrid and Cantabria and women in Madrid, Toledo and Badajoz showed RRs less than 1 (PP<0.05) during the 20 years of the study. The posterior probabilities map indicates that most of the provinces in the Northwest zone (Pontevedra, La Coruña, Lugo and Asturias in both sexes and Leon and Orense in women) and Southeast (Jaen, Malaga, Granada, Almería in both sexes, and Cordoba and Ciudad Real in men) present significantly high risks (posterior probabilities greater than 0.95). Conclusions: Our findings, identifying areas where to direct programs or strategies to reduce or eliminate the risk of mortality by suicide, show the importance of this type of analysis in addressing public health problems.