2024-07-05

Introduction

Background

  • Suicide is a critical global public health issue with 703,000 people commiting suicide annually worldwide (Global statistics on suicide).
  • Male inmates before the 50th birthday are at a relatively higher risk of suicide than females.
  • Southern Africa region has been experiencing relatively high suicide rates e.g., Lesotho (72.4 per 100,000).

Global Statistics

  • Suicide rates vary globally and regionally, being highest in the Southern Africa region,Eastern Europe and part of Asia.

Methods

  • In this study, Time series analysis was used to model and forecast suicide rates in Southern Africa region (Botswana (BWA),Lesotho (LSO),Namibia (NAM),South Africa (ZAF) and Eswatini (SWZ)).

  • Objective: Identify temporal patterns and forecast future rates.

  • WHO Data (2001-2019) from the Southern Africa region was analyzed.

Analysis

Stationarity assessment of Time series

The results below are from the differenced time series to ensure stationarity in first and second-order moments of the data.

KPSS test

At \(\alpha=0.05\) level of significance, results from the KPSS test indicates stationarity in the series p-value=0.1.

ACF plot of suicide rates

PACF plot of suicide rates

Auto Arima model

Findings

  • ARIMA(0,1,0) model was selected.
  • No significant autoregressive or moving average components were found.
  • Results, however, indicate a random walk with drift.

Implications

Policy and intervention recommendations based on findings

  • State actors : Ministry of public health need for increased survellaince/ monitoring and roll out of effective strategies for awareness creation and prevention of suicide among population at risk .

  • Mainstream Media Role - Allocate more airtime,resources on enhancing Public awareness through mental health programmes.

  • Need for collaboration and synergy in programming between Government and Non-state actors (e.g., NGOs) to maximize the impact of resources allocated for managing the problem.

  • Research community: Need to explore impact of various pandemics eg COVID, macro and micro economic conditions on suicide rates.

References