Author:

• Daniel Hideki Bando - Bando, D.H. - São Paulo, SP - Secretaria Municipal da Saúde, Guarulhos - SP - <danhideki@gmail.com>

Co-author(s):

• David Lester - Lester, D. - The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, United States - <David.Lester@stockton.edu>

Thematic Area:

Epidemiologia

Abstract:

The objective was to evaluate correlations between suicide, homicide and sociodemographic variables through an ecological study. Mortality and sociodemographic data were collected from official records of the Ministry of Health and IBGE (2010), aggregated by state (27). The data were analyzed using correlation techniques, factor analysis, principal component analysis with a varimax rotation and multiple linear regression. Suicide age-adjusted rates for the total population, men and women were 5.0, 8.0, and 2.2 per 100,000 inhabitants, respectively. The suicide rates ranged from 2.7 in Pará to 9.1 in Rio Grande do Sul. Homicide for the total population, men and women were 27.2, 50.8, and 4.5 per 100,000, respectively. The homicide rates ranged from 13.0 in Santa Catarina to 68.9 in Alagoas. Suicide and homicide were negatively associated (r = -0.61; p = 0.001), the significance persisted among men. Unemployment was negatively correlated with suicide and positively with homicide. Different sociodemographic variables were found to correlate with suicide and homicide in the regressions. Results suggested that unemployment was the most important mediator in these correlations. Suicide showed a pattern suggesting that, in Brazil, it is related to high socioeconomic status. Homicide seemed to follow the pattern found in other countries, associated with lower low socioeconomic status.

Keywords:

suicide homicide sociodemographic variables ecological study states of Brazil

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