Climate impact on suicide rates in European cultures: a quantitative assessment via inter-disciplinary approach

The “Climate impact on suicide rates in European cultures: a quantitative assessment via inter-disciplinary approach” -project is a unique undertaking. The general aims of the consortium are to combine the climatological information with the environmental conditions and further analyze the effects of climate and climate change on suicide and suicides rates, as well as study the possibilities to improve adaptive capacity to climate change and adaptation measures in occupational health and safety.

Globally and in Finland, suicide rates are rising in the spring into an intra-annual maximum in May or June. The planned study is the first attempt to model the intra-annual spring-time rise in suicides and temperatures at daily resolution, yielding in-depth knowledge on the pulse of suicides in the spring in terms of its climatic forcing. This is highly important, since the temperatures are linearly rising in Finland since the 1840s.

The obtained statistical results are needed to interpret in the cultural context. This project is seeking an powerful method for visually representing the life and times of an element of cultural transmission. Such kind conceptional tool may offer the meme theory; concept of memes as developed by Richard Dawkins is already analyzed and its applicability to suicidology explored in the context of compilation of the Finnish suicide statistics by applicant (Holopainen et al. 2010). Further empirical investigations, however, are needed to improve the utility of this methodological tool.