How Income Level Affects Suicide Rate

Research Proposal
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Policy Puzzle
Learning how income level affects the suicide rate can help develop effective strategies for suicide prevention. The strain is a severe problem in many countries (Cai et al., 2020). Hence, comprehending the link between it and income level is necessary for designing practical prevention strategies. The first motivation to learn about this topic is to understand suicide itself better. Suicide is a complex phenomenon, and learning how it is associated with income level can help me acknowledge how the latter triggers it. This knowledge will allow me to know the best prevention strategies in different contexts. The second motivation to learn about this topic is to comprehend the impact of poverty and inequality on mental health.
Studies have shown that low-income levels are associated with high suicide rates (Bachmann, 2018). This knowledge highlights the importance of addressing economic disparities and inequality to reduce suicide rates. The third motivation to know about this topic is to understand better the potential methods that can be used to reduce suicide rates. Suicide prevention strategies must be tailored to the context, and understanding the link between suicide and income level is essential in designing more effective models (Arafat & Kabir, 2017). For example, it becomes easier to identify areas where targeted interventions are needed to reduce suicide rates.
Literature Review
A case-control study conducted in 2001 examined the link between income level and the threat of suicide among individuals admitted to hospitals with mental illness. The research found that low income was related to a high risk of suicide. It concluded that people with mental illness, especially those economically disadvantaged, had an increased risk of suicide. This suggests that interventions should be tailored to address this disparity (Agerbo et al., 2001). Additionally, the research highlighted the need for increased awareness among clinicians of the potential increased threat of suicide among people from low-income backgrounds.
Another research examined the global shifts in suicide cases and numbers between 1990 and 2019. It evaluated them through demographic and epidemiological decomposition analysis. The World Health Organization (WHO) data was used to measure global suicide mortality cases. The decomposition analysis results showed that between 1990 and 2019, the global suicide mortality rate decreased by 0.71%, while the number of deaths due to suicide increased by 24.2% (Yip et al., 2022). The analysis suggested that the decrease in mortality cases was mainly linked to population aging. At the same time, the rise in suicide deaths was primarily attributed to the population rise. The study concluded that interventions to prevent suicide should focus on population growth and the associated changes in the age structure of populations.
The other study was conducted to highlight the global income distribution and examine how polarized it is. This analysis employed a new method for estimating the Gini coefficient, a commonly used measure of inequality (Roope et al., 2018). The evaluation results showed that the global income ...