ArticleSocial psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology2022
An ecological study of temporal trends in 'deaths of despair' in England and Wales.
Article in Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 26 citations in OpenAlex.
- Which social determinants of health and long-term conditions contribute to inequalities in avoidable emergency hospital admissions? A decomposition analysis of small-area data in England.BMJ public health · 2026Article
- Deaths of despair in England, 2014-2022: trends by sex and socioeconomic deprivation before and after COVID-19.International journal of public health · 2026Article
- Moralisation, stigmatisation, and downstream interventions: How symbolic violence sustains geographic inequalities in deaths of despair in England.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2025Article
- Trends in educational inequalities in all-course mortality and deaths of despair in Swedish youths 1990-2018.SSM - population health · 2025Article
- Age, period, and cohort trends of substance poisoning, alcohol-related disease, and suicide deaths in Australia, 1980-2019.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2025Observational
- "They pulled that funding away and we're not recovering. it's getting worse": deaths of despair in post-austerity north east England.International journal for equity in health · 2024Article
- "They're not mentally ill, their lives are just shit": Stakeholders' understanding of deaths of despair in a deindustrialised community in North East England.Health & place · 2024Article
- A deathly silence: why has the number of people found decomposed in England and Wales been rising?Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine · 2024Article
- Socio-economic vulnerability and deaths of despair in Brazilian counties.Preventive medicine reports · 2024Article
- Tracing the origins of midlife despair: association of psychopathology during adolescence with a syndrome of despair-related maladies at midlife.Psychological medicine · 2023Article
- Article
- Trends in the diversity of mortality causes and age-standardised mortality rates among subpopulations within Scotland, 2001-2019.SSM - population health · 2022Article
- Premature deaths have many names.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2022Article
- "They're Lacking Purpose. It's a Recipe for Suicide.": Masculinity and Gender-Based Inequalities in Deaths of Despair in England.American journal of men's healthArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
purposeThere is growing interest in the concept of 'deaths of despair' (DoD)-defined as deaths from three causes: suicide, drug poisoning, and alcohol-related conditions-as a more comprehensive indicator of the impact of psychological distress on mortality. The purpose of this study is to investigate the degree of commonality in trends and geographic patterning of deaths from these causes in England and Wales.
methodsWHO mortality data were used to calculate age-standardised, sex-specific temporal trends in DoD mortality and in mortality from suicide, drug poisonings, and alcohol-related conditions in England and Wales, 2001-2016. Three-year average crude rates were calculated for English local authorities for 2016-2018 and associations between rates were assessed using Spearman's rank correlation.
resultsBetween 2001 and 2016, the DoD mortality rate increased by 21·6% (males) and 16·9% (females). The increase was largely due to a rise in drug poisoning deaths, with limited tracking between trends in mortality by each cause. DoD mortality risk was highest in middle-aged people; there were rises in all age groups except 15-24 year old males and 65 + females. There were strong positive correlations (r = 0.66(males) and 0.60(females)) between local authority-area drug poisoning and alcohol-specific mortality rates in 2016-2018. Correlations of these outcomes with suicide were weaker (r = 0.29-0.54).
conclusionsDoD mortality is increasing in England and Wales but there is limited evidence of commonality in the epidemiology of cause-specific mortality from the component causes of DoD (suicide, drug poisoning and alcohol-related conditions), indicating the need for tailored prevention for each outcome.
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