Sir, – Prof Brendan Walsh (Letters, June 24th) questioned the validity of the methodology that colleagues and I used in our study of suicide and recession stating that "the estimates . . . convey an air of accuracy and reliability that is spurious". Our study in fact provided indications of precision for all estimates.
Our study showed clearly that there was a decreasing trend in male suicide pre-recession and we derived our primary estimate of excess suicide by assuming a continuation of this trend. This has been the preferred method adopted by the major studies on this topic.
Prof Walsh asked if this assumption was “contingent on the economy having maintained its unsustainable boom-time growth rate after 2007”.
No, we presumed nothing about the economy nor would we believe that explosive economic growth is necessarily good for preventing suicide.
We looked at a range of alternative scenarios and all scenarios supported the reliability of the finding that there were several hundred more suicide deaths and thousands more self-harm presentations to hospital.
Prof Walsh stated that “readers might be surprised to learn that the suicide rate was actually slightly lower in 2012 than it had been in 2008” and that “the suicide rate for males aged between 15 and 44 continued to fall steadily over this period”. Neither statement is correct.
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) reported that 506 suicides occurred in 2008 and 541 occurred in 2012. Using the CSO annual population estimates for each year, the suicide incidence rate is higher for 2012.
After years of decrease, in 2007 there were 230 male 15-44 year-old suicide deaths giving a rate of 22 per 100,000. The number and rate was higher in each of the succeeding five years, ranging from 244 to 280 deaths and from 23 to 27 per 100,000.
Prof Walsh has published work that concluded there was no increase in Irish suicide associated with the recession.
However, that work used provisional suicide figures for the years 2010-2012 and provisional figures always underestimate the actual number of deaths that occurred in a given year.
Our study supersedes earlier work on this topic in Ireland and provides more definitive evidence that there was increased suicide in the years of recession and austerity. – Yours, etc, PAUL CORCORAN Departments of Epidemiology & Public Health and Obstetrics & Gynaecology, University College Cork