Evaluation Criteria for Undercounting of Age-Specific Suicide Mortality

Abstract

The paper analyses the age structure of mortality from suicide, injuries with undetermined intent in general, as well as hanging or jumping/falling from heights with undetermined intent as a potential indicator of latent suicides. It is shown that the age profile of suicide mortality has fundamentally changed over the last 30 years: during the 1990s crisis, a sigmoidal mortality curve with a peak in middle age developed among men, while at the height of the crisis, in the mid-1990s, the maximum age-specific mortality rates were observed among the 50-54-year-olds. Fundamental gender differences in the age profile were only noted during the systemic crisis of the 1990s: as Russian men developed a sigmoidal suicide mortality curve, the age profile of mortality of Russian women was characterised by a stable increase in age-specific indicators starting from age 25-29, while in the mid-1990s women, too, experienced a mortality peak among the 50-54-year-olds. In the 2000s, a gradual flattening-out of the mortality peak in middle age and reaching a maximum at old age took place. Post-2010, a further normalisation of the suicide mortality profile with formation of a plateau at working ages was observed. A comparative analysis of the age profile of suicide mortality and mortality from hanging and jumping/falling from heights with undetermined intent corroborated the hypothesis of these causes being a potential reservoir of latent suicide, which raises the suicide losses of men, from 80% among the 15-24-year-olds to 50% in older individuals, while among women the suicide mortality rate doubles at all ages above 15 years.