ArticleEpidemiology and psychiatric sciences2026
Long-term effectiveness of banning highly hazardous pesticides on suicide mortality: a 12-year quasi-experimental study in South Korea.
Article in Epidemiology and psychiatric sciences, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
aimsPesticide self-poisoning accounts for 14-20% of global suicides, predominantly in agricultural regions where highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs) remain accessible. This poses a critical challenge in South Korea despite its advanced healthcare system. In response, South Korea implemented a phased ban on HHPs, including paraquat, beginning in November 2011. This study aimed to evaluate the long-term effect of this ban on pesticide suicide mortality.
methodsWe conducted an interrupted time series study using national mortality data from 2004 to 2023, with autoregressive integrated moving average errors to account for autocorrelation. Sensitivity analyses included alternative intervention timings, period definitions and outcome measures. The primary outcome was the monthly count of pesticide-related suicides.
resultsAmong 268,869 suicide deaths recorded during the study period, 34,962 (13.0%) involved pesticide poisoning. The monthly pesticide suicide counts declined from a mean of 244 before the ban to 81 afterwards. The interrupted time series analysis revealed no immediate level change following the ban (-0.204; 95% confidence interval [CI]: -0.989 to 0.581;
conclusionsThe ban on HHPs in South Korea was associated with a sustained decline in pesticide suicide mortality over 12 years, with no evidence of method substitution. These findings support the means restriction through pesticide regulation as an effective suicide prevention strategy.
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.