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The Asian economic crises of 1997 and the 2008 Global Financial Crisis (GFC) had far-reaching impacts on Asian and other global economies. Turmoil in the banking and finance sectors led to downturns in stock markets, resulting in bankruptcies, house repossessions and high unemployment. These crises have been shown to be correlated with a deterioration in mental health and an increase in suicides, and it is important to understand the implication of these impacts and how such recessions affect the health of affected populations. With the benefit of hindsight, did lessons learned from the negative effects of the 1997 Asian economic recession impact the aftermath of the 2008 GFC in Asian countries? Utilising a framework based on a simple strata-bootstrap algorithm using daily data – where available – we investigate the trend in suicide rates over time in three different populations (Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea), and examine whether there were any changes in the pattern of suicide rates in each country subsequent to both the 1997 Asian and 2008. We find that each country responded differently to each of the crises and the suicide rates for certain age-gender specific groups in each country were more affected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: From 2010 to 2021, suicide rates in 15–24 age group in Taiwan increased by 70%, with jumping being the most common method in 2021. We examined the link between the rise in youth suicides and the increase in high‐rise buildings during this period. Methods: Spearman's correlation coefficients and negative binomial mixed‐effects models were employed to assess the association between the increase in high‐rise buildings and jumping suicides over time. Results: Spearman's correlation coefficients of high‐rise buildings and jumping suicide rates in youth decreased from 0.692 (p < 0.001) in 2010 to 0.354 (p = 0.11) in 2021. Negative binomial mixed‐effects models showed that although jumping suicide rates in youths increased over time, the increase in numbers of high‐rise buildings was not related to rates of youth suicide by jumping. Conversely, in older age groups, the correlations were still prominent. Conclusion: Despite the rising trend in youth suicides by jumping over the past 11 years, our study refutes the intuitive notion that the increase in high‐rise buildings contributes to this trend. It is imperative to identify and address other potential factors, such as academic stress and/or family disruptions, for effective prevention of youth suicide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Taipei has seen a substantial increase in suicide rates during the past decade, with a significant rise between 2004 and 2006, the time of this study period. Methods: A decompositional analytic method was used to quantify the relative contributions of age, sex and case fatality of methods to attempts and suicides. Results: From 2004 to 2006, the rate of fatal and non-fatal suicide attempts combined for population aged 15 years or above in Taipei increased by 37.3%, while the suicide rate increased by 29.2%. Three factors in these analyses contributed to the increase in suicide rates: (1) an increase in number of attempts, (2) a greater proportion of men among fatal and non-fatal attempts and (3) an increase in the use of a lethal method--burning of charcoal to produce carbon monoxide. The authors estimated that 74.5% and 25.6% among men and women, respectively, of the overall increased suicide mortality were attributable to increased 'charcoal burning suicides.' Conclusions: The rise in suicide rate reflected an increase in attempts and an influx of working-age men joining the pool of people attempting suicide. The much larger size of the attempter pool had the effect of reducing the case fatality even as the suicide rate climbed. The increase in the number of suicide attempts and the rise in the suicide rate were age-, sex-, and method-specific. These results strongly support the concept that reducing the total number of attempts is a central element to curbing suicides. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To assess changes in the intensity of suicide news reporting in Taiwan's local newspapers after the arrival of a daily tabloid-type newspaper, Apple Daily (AD), and evaluate the impact of suicide news reporting on actual suicides and possible mutual causation. Methods: A counting process was used to estimate the intensity of daily suicide news items reported in the China Times (CT) and United Daily (UD) before and after the arrival of AD (2002--05). Poisson regression models were used to assess the impact of the intensity of suicide news reporting on the actual number of next day suicides. Granger's causation model was used to assess mutual causation between suicide news reporting and actual suicides. Results: There was a significant increase in reporting intensity of suicide news in the UD soon after the entry of the AD into Taiwan's media market, while a delayed increase of approximately 1 year was observed in the CT. After the arrival of the AD, the reporting intensity in the UD was significantly related to the occurrence of actual suicides (p<0.05), even after controlling for social variables, whereas no significant correlation was previously observed. Mutual causation between suicide news reporting and actual suicides was also observed. Conclusions: The presence of the AD in Taiwan has fuelled competitive reporting of suicide news among traditional newspapers. This increase in the intensity of suicide news reporting has consequently had an impact on the actual number of suicides. This provides further empirical support for improving media reporting as a key element in suicide prevention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Media guidelines for suicide reporting are available in many countries. However, to what extent the mass media comply with the guidelines is unknown. Few studies are available that investigate systematically whether the mass media reflect the epidemiological reality of suicide deaths in their articles. Methods: Based on the WHO media guidelines, this study investigated the characteristics of newspaper articles of suicides in three Chinese communities, namely Hong Kong, Taiwan and Guangzhou. Epidemiological comparisons were conducted to identify the age and gender differences between the suicide victims as reported in the newspapers and the official records of suicide deaths in all three places. Results: The results found that one media characteristic complied with the WHO media guidelines (ie, only about 2% of the articles were printed on the front page), but there were a number of instances of non-compliance (ie, only 4--14% provided sources for help-seeking and 27--90% printed with photos). The epidemiological comparisons revealed an over-representation of younger suicides and an under-representation of late-life suicides in the newspapers of all three places. Furthermore, female suicides were found to be under-reported in Taiwan and Guangzhou newspapers, but not in Hong Kong papers. Conclusion: Non-compliant suicide articles are prevalent in the newspapers of these three Chinese settings. The observed media misrepresentations may potentially mislead the public and the policy makers about the actual risk for suicide in some demographic groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a varying‐coefficient autoregressive model that contains additive models, varying‐ coefficient models, partially linear models and low‐dimensional interaction models as special cases. A global kernel backfitting method is proposed for the estimation and inference of parameters and unknown functions in this model. Key large‐sample results are established, including estimation consistency, asymptotic normality and the generalized likelihood ratio test for parameters and non‐parametric functions. The proposed methodology is examined by simulation studies and applied to examine the relationship between suicide news reports in the three leading newspapers and the daily number of suicides in Taiwan. The relationship between the media reporting and suicide incidence has been established and explored. The Canadian Journal of Statistics 47: 487–519; 2019 © 2019 Statistical Society of Canada [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent control measures may increase population suicide risk.1 The 2003 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak is amongst previous infectious diseases epidemics most similar to the COVID-19 pandemic, as both were caused by coronaviruses and had a large-scale impact in affected countries.2 We investigated the impact of the SARS outbreak on suicide rates in Taiwan and Hong Kong, two regions most affected by the SARS epidemic,2 to inform concerns about the current pandemic's impact on suicide. Negative binomial regression models were used to estimate the rate ratios (RRs) and their 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for suicide rates during the SARS epidemic period (March-June 2003) and post-epidemic period (July-December 2003), relative to that expected based on pre-epidemic trends (January 1993-February 2003). The greater impact of the SARS epidemic on suicide rates was in parallel to higher SARS case and mortality rates and the epidemic's greater economic impacts in Hong Kong than in Taiwan. [Extracted from the article]

Purpose: Some East/Southeast Asian countries have experienced a rapid increase in suicide by charcoal burning over the past decade. Media reporting and Internet use were thought to contribute to the epidemic. We investigated the association between method-specific suicide incidence and both Internet search volume and newspaper reporting in Taiwan.Method: Weekly data for suicide, suicide-related Google search volume, and the number of articles reporting suicide in four major newspapers in Taiwan during 2008-2011 were obtained. Poisson autoregressive regression models were used to examine the associations between these variables.Results: In the fully adjusted models, every 10 % increase in Google searches was associated with a 4.3 % [95 % confidence interval (CI) 1.1-7.6 %] increase in charcoal-burning suicide incidence in the same week, and a 3.8 % (95 % CI 0.4-7.2 %) increase in the following week. A one-article increase in the United Daily was associated with a 3.6 % (95 % CI 1.5-5.8 %) increase in charcoal-burning suicide in the same week. By contrast, non-charcoal-burning suicide was not associated with Google search volume, but was associated with the Apple Daily's reporting in the preceding week.Conclusions: We found that increased Internet searches for charcoal-burning suicide appeared to be associated with a subsequent increase in suicide by this method. The prevention of suicide using emerging methods may include monitoring and regulating online information that provides details of these methods as well as encouraging Internet service providers to provide help-seeking information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Older adults worldwide are at a greater risk of suicide than other age groups. There is a scarcity of prospective studies exploring risk factors for suicide in older people and their discriminative ability to identify future suicide.Methods: We examined a prospective cohort of senior Taipei City residents between 2005 and 2009 (N=101,764). Cox proportional hazards regression analysis was used to determine significant risk factors and to construct a predictive score. The accuracy of the derived score in the prediction was tested by Receiver Operating Characteristic analysis.Results: Male sex (Hazard Ratio [HR]=3.41, p<0.001), lower education (HR=3.31, p<0.001) and lower income (HR=2.52, p=0.01) were associated with an increased risk of suicide, as well as depressed mood (HR=1.44, p=0.02; per unit increase in a 4-point scale) and insomnia (HR=1.30, p=0.03; per unit increase in a 4-point scale). The derived prediction score yielded a sensitivity of 0.63 a specificity of 0.73 and an area under curve of 0.73. Removing depressed mood from the prediction model did not significantly alter suicide predictability (P=0.11).Limitations: The dataset examined did not contain information regarding to important risk factors such as substance misuse and prescribed medications and the measures of mental health were relatively limited.Conclusion: Prediction of suicide based on factors recorded in a routine health screen of elderly people was unsatisfactory; the strongest predictors were factors that cannot be easily altered. Further understanding of how the socioeconomic condition of seniors contributes to suicide may provide valuable insights for intervention targeting this growing population-at-risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]