Wesley Paul Nderi (s3635870)
Data Sourced from: Australian Bureau of Statistics
Article souced from :The Conversation
The article above from ‘The Conversation’ raises the issue of suicide and self harm and its terrifying prevalence among the youth. It calls for positive strategies to reduce youth self-harm and suicide with schools being at the front-line.
Affirming this, data collected by the Australian Bureau of Statistics(ABS) in 2015 yields relevant findings. It indicates that suicide was the leading cause of death within the age bracket of 15-19 years and there was a higher rate of suicide among females than males. On average, the 40-44 year group has the highest suicide rate for males while the 45-49 year group has the highest suicide rate for females. This data introduces a clear difference between males and females and with the article’s call for introduction of youth directed suicide prevention programs, it may be worth noting that female teenagers are at a higher risk.
Further introspection reveals that while a variation within the age groups exists, on average from 2006-2015, the number of male suicides was always several times higher than the number of female suicides.
This firmly presents that a gender dynamic exists in this issue. Overall, males are at a higher risk but looking into the age-groups presents that there exists some variation as indicated above.
These findings should perhaps direct ‘The Conversation’ into exploring this gender variation as well as looking into calling for suicide prevention programs that are inclusive to people of all ages.