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- Uruguay’s suicide fee has reached 23.3 deaths per 100,000 folks, a file excessive.
- Uruguay is an outlier within the Americas, with a fee roughly two-and-a-half occasions better than the common 9 per 100,000.
- Specialists blame the determine on the COVID-19 pandemic, in addition to Uruguay’s comparative lack of non secular adherence. Uruguayan psychological well being skilled Eduardo Katz additionally notes that neighboring international locations’ robust Catholic convictions “additionally [create] a way of restraint and deterrence” when suicide is considered as a sin.
The suicide fee in Uruguay elevated as soon as once more final 12 months, reaching a brand new file and cementing the small nation’s place as an outlier within the area.
The South American nation’s suicide fee reached 23.3 deaths per 100,000 folks in 2022, when the variety of deaths by suicide totaled 823, marking a rise from the earlier file of 21.6 that had been set in 2021, in keeping with figures from Uruguay’s Health Ministry launched this week.
“Suicide charges have been on the rise because the Nineteen Nineties up till the current, with some minimal declines in a couple of years,” stated Gonzalo Di Pascua, a psychologist who’s a member of the Coordinator of Psychologists of Uruguay and has studied suicide extensively. “The pandemic, very similar to in quite a few different areas of healthcare and psychological well being, primarily exacerbated a pre-existing pattern, which was the growing suicide fee.”
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Uruguay is by far an outlier within the Americas, the place the common suicide fee was 9 per 100,000 folks in 2019, in keeping with the newest out there numbers by the World Health Organization.
The excessive suicide fee in Uruguay contrasts with the best way that the nation is usually seen as a paragon of financial stability within the southern cone. Uruguay enjoys the best rating of all South American international locations within the United Nations’ World Happiness Rating, coming in at 28, in comparison with 49 for Brazil and 52 for Argentina.
But the 2 Uruguay neighbors have far decrease suicide charges, with Argentina recording 8.4 per 100,000 folks in 2019 and Brazil, 6.9.
Eduardo Katz, who leads the psychological well being division at Uruguay’s State Well being Providers Administration, says a part of the disparity could also be due no less than partly to “underreporting in neighboring international locations.” Though he admits that hardly tells the total story.
Uruguayan flag on the market exterior Stadium Centenario, Montevideo, Uruguay, 2006. (Photograph by Jon Buckle – PA Pictures through Getty Pictures)
“One other crucial issue is that there’s little adherence to faith in Uruguay” in comparison with neighboring countries, Katz stated, noting that the view of suicide as a sin “additionally creates a way of restraint and deterrence.”
Specialists additionally speculate that Uruguay’s small inhabitants – totaling some 3 million – makes it harder for people who find themselves dealing with psychological well being challenges to hunt out assist attributable to concern that they are going to be judged by members of their neighborhood.
“We’re few and everyone knows one another,” Katz stated.
There’s additionally a powerful stigma towards asking for assist.
“Uruguay continues to have the unfairness that psychological well being providers are for the loopy,” Di Pascua stated. “There’s nonetheless a whole lot of prejudice when it comes to speaking about psychological well being, and much more so once we discuss suicide.”
That’s much more pronounced in rural areas, which have the best charges of suicide, and amongst males, who make up nearly eight-in-10 of whole suicides within the nation.
“A person is much less more likely to converse out when he feels down as a result of he faces a social interdiction, a social prohibition because of the false machismo that exists of claiming ‘I’m unhappy,’ ‘I really feel unhealthy’,” Katz stated. “It’s seen as an emblem of weak spot.”
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Regardless of years of excessive suicide charges, Katz stated solely just lately has Uruguay began to alter its strategy to deal with the scourge.
The healthcare system has not prioritized “decreasing the demand, that means engaged on prevention,” Katz stated. “That is what we’re beginning to do now.”
Di Pascua, for his half, stated Uruguay has lengthy had a “very particular person deal with the one that carries out the try and never in an answer that’s extra community-oriented.”
Regardless of the latest change in focus, there’s little optimism that it’ll result in quick modifications within the nation’s excessive charges of suicide.
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“Clearly there’s no magic wand that may reverse one of these pattern in a single day. It will take fairly a while,” Katz stated. “It’s very difficult to reverse a pattern, however I’ve religion that we’ll obtain it.”
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