The Importance of Alcoholic Beverage Type for Suicide in Japan: A Time-Series Analysis, 1963-2007

 

 Thor Norström, Andrew Stickley, Kenji Shibuya

Alcohol is a risk factor for suicide

• Follow-up studies of heavy drinkers• Retrospective studies of suicide victims

Why

• heavy drinking deterioration of social ties• heavy drinking depression• intoxication lower self-control triggering

of suicidal impulses

Aggregate level

• Increased per capita alcohol consumption more heavy drinking more suicides

• Numerous studies support the aggregate link

Contingencies

• Stronger link in northern than in southern Europe

• Spirits and beer more important than wine: why?

Japan and suicide

• Japan has one of the highest suicide rates in the world:

• females: 14/100’; males: 40/100’ (2*Sweden)• Individual-level data confirm alcohol as risk

factor• BUT: no aggregate link in previous studies

This study

• Recall beverage specific effects• Total consumption too crude measure if only

spirits matter

Aim

• To estimate beverage-specific effects on suicide in Japan

Data

• consumption per capita (15+) of beer, wine, spirits and other alcohol (sales data)

• suicide rates for the ages 15-69 for females and males

• control variable: unemployment• study period: 1963 to 2007

Method

• Time series analysis of differenced data (ARIMA)

1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 20100

1

2

3

4

5

6

Unemployment Beer Spirits Other Alcohol

1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 20100

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

Suicide Females Suicide Males

Results

• 1-litre increase in spirits consumption 20% increase in male suicides

• unemployment increase of 1 %-point 13% increase in male suicides

• no effects on female suicides

Policy implications

• increase the low prices on spirits• reduce the availability of alcohol from 24/7• discourage the practice of heavy drinking