Discovering the 30 countries with the highest suicide rates in the world really makes you wonder what these unfortunate nations are doing wrong to make so much of their citizens take their own lives.
Whenever a person commits suicide, the reaction that most often reaches my ears is that of disgust: the assertion that Mr. XYZ was a coward and left behind his family/children/wife etc. to fend for themselves. Obviously, it astounds me to know that even in this day and time, people cannot comprehend that mental illness can drive you to do inexplicable things; and the fact remains that mental illness happens to be the biggest driving force of suicide, even in the US as our piece on the 10 biggest causes of suicide in America: Poverty, Bullying, Mental Illness clearly indicates.
What is it about mental illness that people cannot seem to fathom? The stigma is long from over. How can I say that you ask? Well, on my analysis of depression rates by country, it became clear that the United States is almost top of that list with a depression rate of 19.2%, coming second only to France’s 21%. However, what agitates me is that 56% of adults who have mental illness do not receive treatment! And that’s not even counting the youth, whose mental illness situation is worsening by the year. So if the second most depressed country in the world happens to house an unbelievable amount of untreated patients, what does that tell you about the state of mental health awareness in the country? Does it not drive you to conclude that the stigma attached to mental health has not yet been obliterated? What’s sad is that this situation may be causing the youth of the nation to suffer more than necessary. In fact, the US even made an appearance on the 10 countries with the highest youth suicide rates in the world.
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Even though the US did not become part of this list of most suicidal countries, if some of its states were separate countries, they surely would have, especially Montana and Alaska which happen to be among the highest suicidal states, with rates of 23.7 and 23.1 per 100,000 population respectively, while the highest suicidal cities are Las Vegas and Colorado Springs.
Moving on from America, let’s look at some suicide statistics from all over the world, shall we? Well, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), 800,000 people fall victim to suicides annually, which means one person commits suicide every 40 seconds! Incredulously, 15-29 year-olds have suicide to blame as the second leading cause of death in that age group. If you are interested in more statistics like these, you can head on over to our piece on WHO Suicide and Depression Statistics by 11 Countries, while we get on with compiling our list of the 30 countries with the highest suicide rates in the world.
We decided to extend our previous list of the top 10 most suicidal countries in the world, using WHO statistics on age-standardized suicide rates. Unfortunately, the latest data pertains to 2015 so you will have to wait for the highest suicidal country 2016 and the highest suicidal country 2017. Before we begin, let me throw another interesting fact at you. There is actually a nation in the world with a suicide rate of zero! Antigua and Barbuda admittedly has a very tiny population but has managed to pull off a suicide-free zone. Barbados is close with a suicide rate of merely 0.3. It seems that the least suicidal countries happen to be doing quite well for themselves. The countries with the highest suicide rates in the world are not though, so let’s finally list them down.
