THE UNFORTUNATE TRUTH IS THAT STATISTICS DON’T HELP

The first problem we encounter when trying to understand the nature of female suicide is the almost total lack of reliable information on the subject. This isn't to say that there isn't information being produced on the issue. Indeed, There is a wealth of widely publicised statistics in circulation.

The whole field of suicide statistics claims to be fact based, yet the simple truth is that it is impossible to know how many suicides actually occur in the space of a year.

Without this most fundamental information of 'how many' suicides is it possible to break things down into percentages? It simply cannot be done. So when we encounter statistics informing us that only one-in-six suicides leave suicide notes (for example) - on what are these statistics based?   Much of this 'fact based' mis-information is simply estimates masquerading as facts. Alarmingly, much of this speculative 'guesswork' appears to come from the World Health Organization.

Explanation

One Hundred and Five countries regularly provide the WHO with cause of death information from which world statistics are compiled. However, there are not one hundred and five countries on our planet - apparently, if we include TAIWAN there are actually One Hundred and Ninety Four. This means that 45% of the countries on the planet aren't even participating in the monitoring of global suicide rates. In fact, one 'click on' table listing women’s suicide rates (country-by-country) only listed 81 countries.  Excluding the other 112

The following click on site attempts to understand why we should not blindly trust suicide statistics.

http://johnnessuno.tripod.com/theproblemwithsuicidestatistics  

Given that it is pointless trying to make any sense of such an important 'global' issue - based upon psuedo-statistics I won't bother. Instead, DASI will focus its attention on the English speaking world. Both American & Commonwealth English. Researching and cross referencing information by comparing Australian, Canadian, Irish, New Zealand, South African, UK and US websites (and other sources), and searching for common solutions.

Having said that, one of the first things to emerge is (just as it is with men) suicide is much more common among single women, than their married sisters. Also at high risk are those recently separated, divorced or widowed. Paradoxically though, married women have higher rates of depression than unmarried women.