Listening to a Silent Crisis: Men’s Suicide in Rural and Farming Communities in Slovenia

Abstract

Slovenia still belongs to the group of countries with the highest suicide rate in Europe despite its significant but gradual drop in the last two decades from approximately an average of 30 to 20 per 100,000 people.1 Suicide behaviour has merited abundant interest in academic research in Slovenia since the previous century; however, geographic and occupational dimensions of suicide were under-researched. Such is the case of farmers and farm workers who have been globally recognized as one of the riskiest occupational groups in terms of suicide in the last decades (Alston, 2012; Canadian Agricultural Safety Association, 2005; Hawton, Simkin, & Malmberg, 1998; Hirsch & Cukrowicz, 2014; Judd et al., 2006a; Kennedy, Maple, McKay, & Listening to a Silent Crisis: Men’s Suicide in Rural and Farming Communities in Slovenia