Suicide most common cause of death among people aged 15 to 34

Suicide was the most common cause of death among people aged 15 to 34 in 2020, according to a report from the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

A total of 504 people died by suicide in 2020, down from 538 the previous year. Of those deaths, 366 involved men and 138 women.

Nearly one in every 10 deaths due to suicide in 2020 was among those aged 65 and older, which has remained broadly similar over the years.

Suicide was the most common cause of death in 2020 for those aged 15 to 34. A total of 537 people in that age group died that year, of which 146 were by suicide.

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Seán O’Connor, a statistician in the CSO’s vital statistics section, said the cause of death in different cohorts of people “provides very different trends”.

“There were 74 deaths of males aged 20 to 24 years in 2020, and 43.2 per cent of these were due to suicide. This was the highest proportion of deaths due to suicide by age cohort for males,” he said.

“A similar pattern was seen for females, where nearly four out of every 10 (39.1 per cent) deaths occurring to females aged 20 to 24 was due to suicide.”

Men have consistently comprised the largest proportion of deaths by suicide each year. However, the proportion of suicides among women increased from 18.8 per cent in 2012 to 27.4 per cent in 2020.

The report shows that in the in the period from 2012 to 2020, the highest number of deaths due to suicide (585) was recorded in 2012, followed by 2014 when there were 578. The year with the lowest number in that period was 2015, when 500 were recorded.

In 2020, more than two out of every 10 deaths due to suicide occurred in the Dublin region, a trend broadly similar between males and females. Both the midlands and southeast regions accounted for the lowest shares of suicide deaths nationally, at 8.5 per cent and 8.3 per cent, respectively.

In 2020, while 1.5 per cent of all deaths in the State were due to suicide, some regions had shares above national average such as the midlands (2.3 per cent of all deaths in region), border (1.8 per cent), mideast (1.7 per cent), west (1.6 per cent), and midwest (1.6 per cent).

The Samaritans can be contacted on freephone: 116 123 or email: jo@samaritans.ie