4 ms·

It would be interesting to see the rate of suicide (I'm not sure Ian's death is certain to be suicide yet, and I don't wish to speculate.) amongst tech-industry

by unfunco 11y ago

It would be interesting to see the rate of suicide (I'm not sure Ian's death is certain to be suicide yet, and I don't wish to speculate.) amongst tech-industry positions, and other industries as a whole, and whether the rate is increasing. I've struggled recently with burnout, and add that to personal struggles such as relationships and friendships, I've been in a bad place more than once. Talking helps; though with Ian everything happened so quickly, and with Aaron also, the law was seemingly involved with both. There must be FOI requests that can be made for this sort of data, and some analysis might indicate an underlying problem which could begin to be addressed.

brandonmenc 11y ago
I don't think you need FOI requests for this info. What you'll probably find is that occupations exposed to "seeing the worst" (doctor, soldier, cop), and those with rising rates of unemployment, have the most suicides.
DanBC 11y ago
Suicide statistics are tricky. What you do or don't count as a death by suicide isn't always obvious. And there's a bunch of data that isn't always collected, or has only just started to be collected. (Was the person gay? Were they trans?) When we look at work we think that jobs affected by economic downturn are risky (builders, vets, farmers). We also think that some other jobs are risky because they provide access to means and methods (doctors, vets, farmers). There are some risk factors for programmers: young; single; male; intelligent enough to research methods; For England there are these sources: Office of National Statistics. these numbers are robust, and good quality. They very clearly define what they do count as suicide and what they don't count. They also clearly define how they define the year - the year of registration, which may not be the year the death happened. Searching for suicide returns a lot of information, some of which is provided under FOI request. http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/search/index.html?newquery=suicide http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/search/index.html?newquery=suicide Suicides in the UK (2013 registrations) http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/subnational-health4/suicides-in-the-united-kingdom/2013-registrations/suicides-in-the-united-kingdom--2013-registrations.html http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/subnational-health4/suicides-i... Suicides in the UK (2012 registrations): http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/subnational-health4/suicides-in-the-united-kingdom/2012/stb-uk-suicides-2012.html http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/subnational-health4/suicides-i... National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide by People with Mental Illness http://www.bbmh.manchester.ac.uk/cmhs/research/centreforsuicideprevention/nci/ http://www.bbmh.manchester.ac.uk/cmhs/research/centreforsuic... There's also information available from Public Health England. http://fingertips.phe.org.uk/profile-group/mental-health/profile/suicide http://fingertips.phe.org.uk/profile-group/mental-health/pro... http://www.phoutcomes.info/public-health-outcomes-framework#gid/1000044/pat/6/ati/102/page/0/par/E12000004/are/E06000015 http://www.phoutcomes.info/public-health-outcomes-framework#... EDIT: Here's the link to the CDC stuff: http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/suicide/statistics/ http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/suicide/statistics/ http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/suicide/definitions.html http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/suicide/definitions.ht...

by unfunco 11y ago

brandonmenc 11y ago

I don't think you need FOI requests for this info. What you'll probably find is that occupations exposed to "seeing the worst" (doctor, soldier, cop), and those with rising rates of unemployment, have the most suicides.

DanBC 11y ago

Suicide statistics are tricky. What you do or don't count as a death by suicide isn't always obvious. And there's a bunch of data that isn't always collected, or has only just started to be collected. (Was the person gay? Were they trans?) When we look at work we think that jobs affected by economic downturn are risky (builders, vets, farmers). We also think that some other jobs are risky because they provide access to means and methods (doctors, vets, farmers). There are some risk factors for programmers: young; single; male; intelligent enough to research methods; For England there are these sources: Office of National Statistics. these numbers are robust, and good quality. They very clearly define what they do count as suicide and what they don't count. They also clearly define how they define the year - the year of registration, which may not be the year the death happened. Searching for suicide returns a lot of information, some of which is provided under FOI request. http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/search/index.html?newquery=suicide http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/search/index.html?newquery=suicide Suicides in the UK (2013 registrations) http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/subnational-health4/suicides-in-the-united-kingdom/2013-registrations/suicides-in-the-united-kingdom--2013-registrations.html http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/subnational-health4/suicides-i... Suicides in the UK (2012 registrations): http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/subnational-health4/suicides-in-the-united-kingdom/2012/stb-uk-suicides-2012.html http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/subnational-health4/suicides-i... National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide by People with Mental Illness http://www.bbmh.manchester.ac.uk/cmhs/research/centreforsuicideprevention/nci/ http://www.bbmh.manchester.ac.uk/cmhs/research/centreforsuic... There's also information available from Public Health England. http://fingertips.phe.org.uk/profile-group/mental-health/profile/suicide http://fingertips.phe.org.uk/profile-group/mental-health/pro... http://www.phoutcomes.info/public-health-outcomes-framework#gid/1000044/pat/6/ati/102/page/0/par/E12000004/are/E06000015 http://www.phoutcomes.info/public-health-outcomes-framework#... EDIT: Here's the link to the CDC stuff: http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/suicide/statistics/ http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/suicide/statistics/ http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/suicide/definitions.html http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/suicide/definitions.ht...