Opinion

There are still too many unknowns when it comes to suicide prevention

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1 Comment
  • Diego S. says:

    Thank you very much for this thoughtful piece. I’m wondering if you can speak more about the social determinants of health in relation to depression and suicide? Although it certainly is the case that folks from all socioeconomic statuses (SES) are at risk of depression and suicide, those of lower SES are at higher risk than folks of higher SES (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16420711 as just one random review paper notes). It strikes me that focusing primarily on the benefit of new antidepressants (which is fantastic) and immediate crises support is too narrowly focused on the downstream causes of suicide (i.e., depression). My criticism is that much more attention needs to be paid to the political and economic contexts in which suicides occurs (as, for example, the greater rates of suicide among Inuits in Quebec, as you well note).

Authors

Zul Merali

Contributor

Dr. Zul Merali, is president and CEO of the Royal’s Institute of Mental Health Research (IMHR), affiliated with the University of Ottawa.

Zachary Kaminsky

Contributor

Dr. Zachary Kaminsky, is DIFD Mach-Gaensslen Chair in Suicide Prevention Research at the IMHR.

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