ArticleThe lancet. Psychiatry2024
Ethnicity and suicide in England and Wales: a national linked cohort study.
Article in The lancet. Psychiatry, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Risk and Protective Factors for Suicide Mortality in Youths: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.JAMA network open · 2026Pooled it
- Mental illness and suicidality among Roma and traveller communities in the UK, Ireland, and other countries: a systematic review.BMC psychiatry · 2025Pooled it
- Racial discrimination in healthcare and public settings as a predictor of suicidal ideation onset among U.S. Adults with baseline depressive symptoms.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2026Article
- Urbanicity, Neighborhood Conditions, and Dementia Mortality.JAMA network open · 2026Article
- Insights into middle-aged men (40-70) who died by suicide: a nationwide mixed methods study in the Netherlands.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Enhancing population-wide administrative data to better understand mortality risk in underserved groups.SSM - population health · 2026Article
- Psychometric properties of suicide risk assessments in young Black populations internationally: a scoping review.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2026Review
- Sociodemographic differences in the risk of suicides in children and young people: a population level linked study in England, 2011 to 2022.Journal of epidemiology and community health · 2026Article
- Associations Between COVID-19 Business and Social Gathering Restrictions and Deaths by Suicide in the United States: A Cross-Sectional County-Level Analysis.The Psychiatric quarterly · 2026Article
- Changes in child suicide rates and characteristics during the COVID-19 pandemic in England.Frontiers in child and adolescent psychiatry · 2026Article
- Characteristics of Suicidal Patients Who Engaged in Suicide-Related Internet Use in the United Kingdom: Cross-Sectional Survey Findings.JMIR mental health · 2025Article
- Spatio-temporal trends and socio-environmental determinants of suicides in England (2002-2022): an ecological population-based study.The Lancet regional health. Europe · 2025Article
- Economic Cost of Suicide Among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) Migrants in Australia.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2025Article
- Experiences and Perceptions of Self-Harm in Rural-Dwelling Adults: A Rapid Review of Qualitative Evidence.Health expectations : an international journal of public participation in health care and health policy · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
- Commented on by
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundUnderstanding of ethnic disparities in suicide in England and Wales is poor as ethnicity is not recorded on death certificates. Using linked data, we examined variations, by sex, in suicide rates in England and Wales by ethnicity and migrant and descendant status.
methodsUsing the Office for National Statistics 2012-19 mortality data linked to the 2011 census from the Public Health Research Database, we calculated the age-standardised suicide rates by sex for each of the 18 self-identified ethnicity groups in England and Wales. We present rates by age, sex, and methods used for suicide by ethnic group. We estimated age-adjusted and sex-adjusted incidence rate ratios (IRRs) using Poisson regression models for each minority ethnic group compared with the majority population. We involved people with lived experience in the research.
findingsOverall, 31 644 suicide deaths occurred over the study period, including 3602 (11%) in people from minority ethnic backgrounds, with a mean age of death of 43·3 years (SD 17·0, range 13-96). Almost all minority ethnic groups had a lower rate of suicide than the White British majority, apart from individuals who identified as being from a Mixed heritage background or White Gypsy or Irish Travellers. In females who identified as Mixed White and Caribbean, the suicide IRR was 1·79 (95% CI 1·45-2·21) compared with the White British majority; in those who identified as White Gypsy or Irish Travellers, the IRR was 2·26 (1·42-3·58). Rates in males identifying as from these two groups and those identifying as White Irish were similar to the White British majority. Compared with the non-migrant population, migrants had a lower rate of suicide regardless of ethnicity, but in the descendant population, people from a Mixed ethnicity background had a higher risk of suicide than the White British majority.
interpretationThere are ethnic disparities in suicide mortality in England and Wales, but the reasons for this are unclear. The higher rate in previously overlooked minority ethnic groups warrants further attention.
fundingWellcome Trust.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.