Assignment 2.1

[Chawarat Rotejanaprasert]

For assignment 2.1, please discuss the following questions:
1. Why was the author interested in investigating the suicide problem in Thailand during the time?
2. Each of students picks one potential risk factor mentioned in the paper and explains how the variable can contribute to the suicide rate?
3. How statistical modeling can contribute to investigate the epidemiology and spatial aspects of Thai suicide problem?

[Karina Dian Lestari]

1. Thailand had an increasing suicide rate as any other country. However, Thailand had a different economic and social-cultural context from the countries that are mentioned in the paper which mostly has industrial economy. In addition, there is only one study that has been done to address the problem.

2. Interesting finding in this study is that the suicide rate increase as the income increase. Moreover, households with economic hardship and financial problems tend to have lower suicide rates. As mentioned in the paper, people who had a better economy were living in the cities and were relatively more ‘closed’ and individual compared to people who lives in urban areas which had a stronger community. This implies that in Thailand, social culture has a significant impact on people’s lives.

3. Statistical modelling is very helpful in investigating the epidemiology and spatial aspects of the Thai suicide problem since it can be used to determine whether there is some spatial relation to suicide. It can also be used to investigate if there is any clustering of suicide cases between the neighbouring provinces.

[Chawarat Rotejanaprasert]

Hello Karina, Thank you for your comments. Economic variables have been to known to relate to suicide. The results on suicide reflect that the culture in Thailand perhaps also has an effect on suicide rates. I agree that spatial analyses such as cluster detection can be applied to this issue which you’ll learn in next week! I just also learned that suicide is one of top five leading causes of death among adolescents globally… Hope that would be more research on mental health especially using spatial analysis.

[Hazem Abouelfetouh]

1- The number of suicides has been increasing since 2011. The factors change lead to this increase whether or not economic factors over time should be investigated especially in a country like Thailand which differs from other industrialized countries.

2- The suicide rates were significantly driven by alcohol. As mentioned in the paper, for every additional unit of population consuming alcohol we can expect suicide rates to increase by an average of 0.086. With the increase in alcohol consumption in provinces in the north and northeast regions and mainly Phayao, we can expect to have the highest suicide rate in this region compared with other regions in Thailand.

3- Using statistical models and methods for the analysis of geo-referenced data can effectively improve our understanding and help to determine the factors that contribute to the change in suicide rates of suicides and identify the area variation of suicide risk across provinces.

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