Suicide in the People's Republic of China

Authors: Pritchard, C.

Pages: 165-168

ISBN: 9781614709657

Abstract:

The suicide rate and the rate of undetermined 'Other External Cause Deaths' (OECD) of the majority of Islamic and Latin American countries suicide are markedly different from the Major Developed Countries (MDC). In particular, there is a likely possibility of a substantial number of hidden suicides in their OECD rates, which reflects their traditional cultural anathema to suicide. Indeed, the only consistent similarity between the two cultural groups and the MDC is that male suicide, across all age bands, is much higher than for women. This leads to considering the other 'Non-Western' major culture for which fairly recent WHO data is available, namely the People's Republic of China (PRC). In 1997, there was a window of opportunity as for the first time the PRC had reported their mortality rates to the WHO for the years 1990, 1992 and 1994 using the ICD 9th edition (WHO 1997). The data were based upon samples from "selected Rural and Urban zones", with representative populations from Rural and Urban areas of 52.03 million and 61.23 million respectively. Unfortunately there were no data available for the undetermined category, and so no estimate can be made of any possible hidden suicides. A detailed methodology and literature review can be found elsewhere (Pritchard, 1996; Lau & Pritchard, 2001; Pritchard & Baldwin, 2002). Sufficient to say however, the earlier results challenged a number of stereotypical beliefs about Chinese culture, and this reworking and new analysis of the data highlight previously missed variations from the dominant Western model. © 2012 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.

Source: Scopus

Suicide in the People's Republic of China

Authors: Pritchard, C.

Pages: 165-168

Publisher: Nova Science Publishers

ISBN: 9781614709657

Abstract:

The suicide rate and the rate of undetermined 'Other External Cause Deaths' (OECD) of the majority of Islamic and Latin American countries suicide are markedly different from the Major Developed Countries (MDC). In particular, there is a likely possibility of a substantial number of hidden suicides in their OECD rates, which reflects their traditional cultural anathema to suicide. Indeed, the only consistent similarity between the two cultural groups and the MDC is that male suicide, across all age bands, is much higher than for women. This leads to considering the other 'Non-Western' major culture for which fairly recent WHO data is available, namely the People's Republic of China (PRC). In 1997, there was a window of opportunity as for the first time the PRC had reported their mortality rates to the WHO for the years 1990, 1992 and 1994 using the ICD 9th edition (WHO 1997). The data were based upon samples from "selected Rural and Urban zones", with representative populations from Rural and Urban areas of 52.03 million and 61.23 million respectively. Unfortunately there were no data available for the undetermined category, and so no estimate can be made of any possible hidden suicides. A detailed methodology and literature review can be found elsewhere (Pritchard, 1996; Lau & Pritchard, 2001; Pritchard & Baldwin, 2002). Sufficient to say however, the earlier results challenged a number of stereotypical beliefs about Chinese culture, and this reworking and new analysis of the data highlight previously missed variations from the dominant Western model. © 2012 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.

Source: Manual