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Extremes in water availability and suicide: Evidence from a nationally representative sample of rural Indian adults
- Source :
- Environ Res
- Publication Year :
- 2020
- Publisher :
- Elsevier BV, 2020.
-
Abstract
- Background Extremes in water availability, either exceptionally wet or dry conditions, can damage crops and may detrimentally affect the livelihood and well-being of people engaged in agriculture. We estimated the effect of water availability on suicide in rural India, a context where the majority of households are dependent upon agriculture. Methods We used data from a nationally representative sample of 8.5 million people who were monitored for causes of death from 2001 to 2013. Water availability was measured with high-resolution precipitation and temperature data (i.e., the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index). We used a fixed effects approach that modeled changes in water availability within districts (n = 569) over time (n = 13 years) to estimate the impact on suicide deaths. We restricted our analysis to rural areas and to deaths occurring during the growing season (June–March) among adults aged 15 or older, and controlled for sex, age, region, and year. We used Poisson regression with standard errors clustered at the district level and total deaths as the offset. Results There were 9456 suicides and 249,786 total deaths in our study population between 2001 and 2013. Compared to normal growing seasons, the percent of deaths due to suicide increased by 18.7% during extremely wet growing seasons (95% CI: 6.2, 31.2) and by 3.6% during extremely dry growing seasons (95% CI: −17.9, 25.0). We found that effects varied by age. Conclusions We found extremes is water availability associated with an increase in suicide. Abnormally wet growing conditions may play an important, yet overlooked, role in suicide among rural Indian adults.
- Subjects :
- Adult
Adolescent
India
Growing season
Context (language use)
010501 environmental sciences
01 natural sciences
Biochemistry
Article
03 medical and health sciences
symbols.namesake
0302 clinical medicine
Evapotranspiration
11. Sustainability
Humans
030212 general & internal medicine
Poisson regression
0105 earth and related environmental sciences
General Environmental Science
business.industry
Temperature
1. No poverty
Water
Livelihood
Suicide
Geography
Agriculture
symbols
Population study
Seasons
Rural area
business
Demography
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 00139351
- Volume :
- 190
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Environmental Research
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....14945937ce48b358b389088e77d35bf7