Table 2 |
||||
|
Estimates of suicide rates and the contribution of pesticides to suicide in India |
||||
|
Author |
Years covered (no. suicides) |
Setting |
Estimated total (all methods) suicide rate |
Estimates of the proportion of suicides (or episodes of self-harm) due to pesticides |
|
|
||||
|
Nandi et al. [89] |
1976–7 (n = 101) |
Districts in West Bengal (rural) |
Daspur area: 29 per 100,000 |
58% due to endrin (a pesticide) |
|
Chandrakona area: 5 per 100,000 |
37% due to endrin |
|||
|
Bannerjee et al. [90] |
1978 (n = 58) |
Villages in Deganga, West Bengal (rural) |
43 per 100,000 |
93% suicides due to self-poisoning ("almost exclusively)" organophosphorus pesticides |
|
Shukla et al. [91] |
1986–7 (n = 187) |
Jhansi City, Uttar Pradesh (urban) |
29 per 100,000 |
10% (insecticides and rat poison). |
|
Bhatia et al. [92] |
Not stated (n = 55) |
Delhi (urban and rural areas) |
- |
Only 13% of suicides had self-poisoned (all substances) |
|
Joseph et al. [64] |
1994–9 (n = 609) |
Villages in Kaniyambadi (rural), Tamil Nadu |
95 per 100,000 |
45% self-poisoning (all substances). 40% of the suicides in 15–19 year olds used pesticides in 1992–2001 [93] |
|
Lalwani et al. [94] |
1991–2000 (n = 222) |
New Delhi (urban) |
- |
10–18 year olds: poisoning accounted for 49% of male and 37% female suicides. Pesticides were commonest poisons recorded. |
|
Gururaj et al. [95] |
2001–2 (n = 269) |
Bangalore (urban) |
- |
28% (male) and 19% (female) suicides were self-poisoning (all substances). |
|
Kumar et al. [96] |
1994–2004 (n = 441) |
Mannipal (rural) |
- |
>55% insecticides |
|
Prasad et al. [65] |
2000–2002 (n = 306) |
Villages in Kaniyambadi (rural), Tamil Nadu |
92 per 100,000 |
Organophosphorus pesticides accounted for 40.5% of suicides |
|
Mohanty et al. [97] |
2000–2003 (n = 588) |
Berhampur (rural and urban) |
- |
30.6% of all suicides were self-poisoning (>70% used pesticides) |
|
Bose et al. [66] |
1998–2004 (n = 638) |
Villages in Kaniyambadi (rural), Tamil Nadu |
82 per 100,000 |
40% poisoning (majority pesticides) |
|
Sharma et al. [98] |
1996–2005 (n = 1421) |
Chandigarh (rural and urban) |
- |
Aluminium phosphide accounts for 24% of all suicides; organophosphorus and organochlorine products 10% |
|
Gajalakshmi et al. [67] |
1997–8 (n = 3,249) |
Villpuram district (rural), Tamil Nadu |
62 per 100,000 |
53% self-poisoning ("generally involved agrochemicals") |
|
Kumar P et al. [99] |
2001 and 2005 (n = 200) |
Six districts in rural Punjab |
12.4 per 100,000 (2001) 13.1 per 100,000 (2005) |
Pesticide/poison used in 77% (154/200) suicides studied. |
|
|
||||
|
Reasonable estimate of Indian suicide rate from these data: 40 per 100,000 (lower limit: 10 per 100,000 Indian Police Statistics [58]); upper limit 80 per 100,000 Tamil Nadu [64] [65] [66] [67]. |
||||
|
Gunnell et al. BMC Public Health 2007 7:357 doi:10.1186/1471-2458-7-357 |
||||
