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Burden of Suicide

 

 

Goal 3 of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (SDGs) is to "Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages". Target 3.4 is: By 2030, reduce by one-third premature mortality from non-communicable diseases through prevention and treatment and promote mental health and well-being. Suicide mortality is a key outcome indicator (indicator 3.4.2) to monitor progress on mental health interventions.

This data visualization presents estimates of suicide mortality and measures of the burden of suicides, including disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), years of life lost due to premature death (YLLs), and years lived with disability (YLDs) by age, sex at regional, subregional and national levels in the Region of the Americas from 2000 to 2021.

 

Mortality

In 2021, regionwide Suicide accounted for:

  • 100,760 deaths, among which 79,520 (79%) occurred among males, and 21,768 (21%) occurred among females.
  • The absolute number of deaths from suicide increased by 60% from 63,097 deaths in 2000 to 100,760 deaths in 2021. 
  • The estimated age-standardized death rate from suicides was 9.2 deaths per 100,000, a 17% increase relative to the level in 2000 (7.8 deaths per 100,000 population).
  • The age-standardized suicide death rates vary substantially (88 times) across countries, from a maximum of 26.4 deaths per 100,000 people in Guyana to a minimum of 0.3 deaths per 100,000 people in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
  • Suicide mortality was consistently higher among males (14.7 deaths per 100,000 people) than among females (3.9 deaths per 100,000 people).

In 2021, North America had the highest suicide mortality rate (13.5 per 100,000 population), whereas the Andean Area exhibited the lowest rate (5.0 per 100,000 population).

The top 20% of countries with the highest age-standardized suicide mortality rates in 2021 are:

  1. Guyana: 26.4 deaths per 100,000 population
  2. Suriname: 22.4
  3. Uruguay: 22.0
  4. United States of America: 14.1
  5. Trinidad and Tobago: 11.6
  6. Haiti: 9.3 
  7. Cuba: 9.2

DATA CLASSIFICATION

In the map and bar chart, the data is presented in five discrete classes created using the quantile classification method. Each class contains 20% of countries, which is easy to interpret. The quintile classes are labeled sequentially from Quintile 1 as the first quintile including the lowest fifth (0 to 20%) of the data to Quintile 5, the fifth quintile representing the class with the highest fifth (80% to 100%) of the data.

MEASURES

Measure names:

Deaths, Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs), Years Lived with Disability (YLDs), and Years of Life Lost (YLLs) due to diabetes mellitus

Metric: Rate 

Unit of Measure: deaths, DALY, YLD, and YLL per 100,000 population

Topic: Mortality and burden of disease

Rationale: Measuring how many people die each year and why they died, and gauging how diseases and injuries are affecting people is one of the most important means for assessing the effectiveness of a country’s health system and inform decision-makers and policy-makers. Statistics of causes of death and disability help health authorities evaluate and focalize public health actions.

Disaggregation: Age, Sex, Country, and Year

Method of estimation: Mortality estimates by cause, age, sex, location (countries, and the region), and year were extracted from the WHO Global Health Estimates (GHE) 2019. These estimates represent WHO's best estimates, computed using standard categories, definitions, and methods to ensure cross-country comparability, and may not be the same as official national estimates. 

Methodological details:

Data sources and methods for estimating causes of deaths and burden of diseases are described in the following documents

Method of estimation of global and regional aggregates: Global, regional and subregional aggregates were computed by summing the absolute number of the measure (deaths, DALYs, YLDs, YLL) as the numerator and summing the population estimates from the World Population Prospect, produced by the UN Population Division, as denominators for all countries included in the geographic region or subregion. Rates were computed by dividing the aggregated numerator and aggregated population and multiplying the result y 100,000 population. Age-standardized rates were computed by the direct method using the World Standard Population. 

Preferred data sources: Civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) system with complete coverage and medical certification of cause of death.

Suicides are preventable with timely, evidence-based, and often low-cost mental health support and interventions. There are a number of measures that can be taken at population, sub-population, and individual levels to prevent suicide and suicide attempts.

Those mesaures include:

  • early identification, treatment and care of people with mental and substance use disorders, chronic pain, and acute emotional distress;
  • reducing access to the means of suicide (e.g. pesticides, firearms, certain medications);
  • reporting by media in a responsible way;
  • school-based interventions to support children, adolescents, and young people physical and mental development;
  • implementation alcohol policies to reduce the harmful use of alcohol and substance abuse;
  • training of non-specialized health workers in the assessment and management of suicidal behavior;
  • follow-up care for people who attempted suicide and provision of community support.
  1. WHO. WHO methods and data sources for country-level causes of death 2000-2019. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2020. Available online (accessed 1 February 2021).
  2. WHO. WHO methods and data sources for global burden of disease estimates, 2000-2019. Geneva: World Health Organization, 2020. Available online (accessed 1 February 2021).
  3. PAHO. Methodological Notes, NMH Data Portal. Pan American Health Organization. 2021. 
  4. PAHO Topic: Suicide prevention. Pan American Health Organization. Available online (accessed 17 June 2021).
  5. WHO. Factsheet: Suicide. World Health Organization. Available online (accessed 17 June 2021)
  6. WHO. Suicide worldwide 2019: global health estimates. World Health Organization. Geneva. 2021. Available online (accessed June 28, 2019)
  7. Suicide Mortality in the Americas – Regional Report 2015-2019. Washington, D.C.: Pan American Health Organization; 2021. License: CC BY-NCSA 3.0 IGO. Available online (accessed December 2, 2021)

Suggested citation

PAHO. The burden of suicide in the Region of the Americas. ENLACE data portal. Pan American Health Organization. 2025 [Internet] https://www.paho.org/en/enlace/burden-suicide.

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