Effect of daily temperature variations on years of life lost from suicide in the capital city of South Korea

Abstract

Suicide is one of the important public health issues among mental health problems. Given that suicide significantly increases the risk of premature death, it is essential to identify potential risk factors for its prevention. It has been known that meteorological variables have an impact on suicide, but the influence of temperature variations on suicide has been undetermined. A generalized additive model utilizing a Gaussian distribution was used to assess the association between diurnal temperature range (DTR) and YLLs from suicide after rigorous adjustment for confounders, including temperature. Moreover, the lag effects of DTR up to 7 days were considered when performing the main analysis and subgroup analyses by sex, age, level of education, occupation, marital status, place of death, suicide method, and season. DTR and YLLs from suicide showed a significant positive association over various lag structures. The best-fitting lag structure was lag 0–6 (7.03 years, 95% confidence intervals: 3.49, 10.58 years). In subgroup analyses, DTR and YLLs from suicide showed the most significant associations in males (3.79 years), those in the age group of 36–64 years (4.22 years), unemployed (5.02 years), unmarried (3.98 years), death inside buildings (5.42 years), violent method (6.66 years), and spring (4.30 years). Our study offers new evidence that DTR may contribute as a risk factor for YLLs from suicide. Our finding can be considered when establishing preventive measures for premature death from suicide.