What about Development? Social Capital and Suicide

Abstract

ABSTRACT Suicide causes more than 800,000 deaths a year worldwide. Finding factors that may reduce or prevent suicide is of utmost concern. Social capital has been one of the factors examined for its role in reducing suicide; however, the exact relationship between social capital and suicide is not clear. Moreover, many of the studies examining social capital and suicide take place in high-income areas. There is a void in our knowledge of the relationship between social capital and suicide because of our lack of inclusion of different levels of development. The study – including 41 high-income and 77 middle and low-income countries – found that social capital was a significant predictor of suicide in high-income countries; social capital was not significantly associated with suicide in middle or low-income countries.