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It depends on the country. Suicide stats come in roughly three different forms: 1) Coroners reports 2) National statistics organisations 3) Early data / rea

by DanBC 6y ago

It depends on the country. Suicide stats come in roughly three different forms: 1) Coroners reports 2) National statistics organisations 3) Early data / real time surveillance The data from coroners will tend to undercount. Coroners have a tight definition (The person ended their own life, and they had the intent to do so when they did so) and this has to be proved to a standard (balance or probabilities, or sometimes beyond all reasonable doubt). Suicide is an important public health problem, and so some national statistics orgs will have a slightly broader definition. They'll look at all death certificates and coroners reports and code the deaths. So, for England we have https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/suicidesintheunitedkingdom/2014registrations#methodological-changes https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsde... > Suicide definition > The previous National Statistics definition of suicide includes deaths from intentional self-harm (where a coroner has given a suicide conclusion or made it clear in the narrative conclusion that the deceased intended to kill themselves) and events of undetermined intent (mainly deaths where a coroner has given an open conclusion) in people aged 15 and over. > Causes of death are coded using the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD-10) from 2001 and Ninth Revision (ICD-9) from 1981 to 2000 (World Health Organisation). The US doesn't use this definition. Intent is required in the US definition. There's some lag in these data and sometimes we want a quicker picture. We sometimes use an even broader definition for real-time monitoring that would be something like "suspected self-inflicted death". So, to answer your question: yes, sometimes the stats do get adjusted to include these deaths but mostly not. It's complicated and depends on the country.

DanBC 6y ago
Eh, to be more clear: in England, a drug overdose death would tend not to be recorded as a death by suicide unless the coroner had said the person intended to die, or had given a narrative conclusion where intent is unclear. Death by misadventure would normally not be counted as a death by suicide.

by DanBC 6y ago

DanBC 6y ago

Eh, to be more clear: in England, a drug overdose death would tend not to be recorded as a death by suicide unless the coroner had said the person intended to die, or had given a narrative conclusion where intent is unclear. Death by misadventure would normally not be counted as a death by suicide.