Suicide Among Young Men in the United Kingdom - Research Paper Example

? Sociology Research Direction Investigation Suicide in the United Kingdom by young males as a consequence of media intervention Conducted by {Your Name} In consideration of requirements of {Course Name} Submitted to {Professor’s Name} On {date} Introduction Individuals and societies are deeply intertwined. The actions of individuals affect society while social circumstances affect individual behaviour. A direct cause and effect relationship exists between both societies and individuals. Sociologists attempt to analyse the relationship between such part and whole using scientific methods so as to clear up certain wrongly held beliefs. Social phenomenon of various kinds is analysed using evidence to back up claims. Evidence gathering for such purposes needs to be traced out meticulously in order to create a true reflection of the society and its problems. This paper attempts to analyse the social problem of suicide in Great Britain in order to ascertain a particular direction for research. Overlying trends will be identified and any anomalies in social behaviour will be segregated. These social anomalies will be investigated later as “major memoirs” while this “minor memoir” will delineate the various resources that could be used to research the identified issue. Moreover, the credibility, relevance and suitability of the sources will be established to present a strong foundation for research. Social Problems Social problems can be seen as any social conditions that produce harm to any segment of the society’s population. Moreover, social problems can also represent various social conditions and acts that may violate a society’s norms and values. (Eitzen et al., 2009) Social problems can be produced by social psychological behaviour or through implications of the social structure. (Beeghley, 2000) For example if a person is a drug addict then there could be multiple causes for it. One reason could be that the person in question has friends or other social influences that encourage the use of drugs. This reason would constitute the social psychological aspect of the explanation. Another reason could be that the person in question is unemployed, depressed or otherwise repressed by social institutions to an extent that he feels that drug use is the only solution. Such an explanation would constitute a social structural explanation of the problem. Social problems can proliferate if portrayed in such light. Suicide: Social Problem or Private Problem Suicide can be seen as any act initiated by a human being to end his or her own life with complete knowledge and established intent. (Hawton & van Heeringen, 2009) Various reasons can be attributed to suicide including social, biological and other explanations. Perhaps the most significant work on suicide was produced by Emile Durkheim in analysing suicide using scientific methods. However there has been rampant debate regarding the nature of suicide as a personal or as a social problem. The act of taking one’s own life is nonetheless a purely personal problem. The lack of social commentary on any issue tends to make such issues personal. Previously suicide was treated as a purely personal problem. However media spotlight on the issue aided in the transformation of suicide into a social problem in recent years. (Samaritans, 2011) In order to ground things in more concrete reason it is best to analyse the statistics for suicide to form a clearer picture. Suicidal Trends in Great Britain The suicide rates in Great Britain must be traced from official sources in order to guarantee their credibility. Moreover, suicide rates need to be adjusted for their consistency with population growth. As population levels grow each year, the suicide rates must reflect this growth or suicide rates would seem to keep decreasing each year. The government of Great Britain compiles statistics for suicide as well as other such issues each year. These statistics are available on the official statistics portal of the government better known as the Office for National Statistics. On the other hand the Coroner’s Office does not provide any statistics for death in lieu of official policy which makes the compilation of such statistics beyond the duty of coroners. (Coroner Society, 2011) A graph for suicide rates adjusted for population changes has been used for the initial investigation with statistics from the ONS. The graph is shown below. Figure 1 - Suicides between 1991 and 2009 Britain has experienced medium suicide rates in comparison to the rest of the world where overall suicide rates end up at 20 in 100,000 people. The graph above shows that for the last two decades, Britain has experienced a continuous decrease in suicide rates for both men and women as represented by the graph below. The ratio between men’s suicide rates and women’s suicide rate has been consistent too at around 1 female suicide to 4 male suicides. This ratio can be seen to be consistent throughout both decades except for a major spike in male suicide rates nearly at the end of the first decade. (Office for Naitonal Statistics, 2011a) This change is traceable to 1998 when the suicide rates jumped up significantly in comparison to 1997 and the years before it. In fact, the suicide rates in 1998 for males peaked at 21.1 per 100,000 people and this suicide rate matches to the suicide rate in 1992 which was 21.1 per 100,000 people. The suicide rate decreases after 1998 till 2007 continuously till it declined to 16.8 per 100,000 people. A small increase came through in 2008 with suicide rates in males reaching 17.7 per 100,000 people. However, the change in 2008 is significantly smaller than the change in 1998. This spike in suicide rates appears as an anomaly as the change from the regular trend is around 10%. It is known that the anomaly occurs in the suicide rates of males but no other distinction within this category is known at this point in time. It would be pertinent to analyse this anomaly in context of age as well. Another graph was sourced from the Office of National Statistics website for age based break up of suicide rates. The graph is presented below and a discussion follows that. Figure 2 - Suicide rates by sex and age group 2000 to 2009 The graph above clearly shows that male populations have been demarcated in three distinct age ranges which are: 15 to 44 years; 45 to 74 years; 75 years and above. Moreover, the suicide rates for males between 15 and 44 years of age are highest in 2000 which seem to be continuing from the trend in the previous graph. Following the year 2000, the male suicide rates have been on the decline except for suicide rates for males above 75 years of age. (Office for Naitonal Statistics, 2011a) However, the contribution of males above 75 years of age is much lower than the contribution of males between 15 and 44 years of age. This can be discerned as the overall graph line in Figure 1 is following the trend of suicides for males between 15 and 44 years of age. Detailed statistics can provide a much clearer picture of the situation so these need to be found out. A detailed treatment of suicide rates is available through the Office for National Statistics which were discovered by searches through Google. The keywords used were “young male suicide rate statistics Great Britain”. The ONS (Office for National Statistics) provides detailed statistics for suicide rates in the form of Excel files that contain numbers only. These statistics were last updated on 27th January 2011 as per the ONS website. (Office for National Statistics, 2011b) The statistics from these files were combined in an Excel file and then analysed using Excel’s graphing utility. The new graph created based on these statistics is displayed below. Figure 3 - Male Suicide Rates 1991-2009 The graph above shows major variations in the suicide rates of males around 1998. The suicide rates of males above 75 years of age experience a major increase in 1994. However, the overall contribution of each segment to the aggregate suicide rate of the male population is still hard to figure out. This can be substantiated best if actual numbers of suicides are used. These statistics have been sourced from similar investigations of the ONS and have been graphed as explained previously. The results of the graph are displayed below. Figure 4 - Male Suicide by Numbers 1991 – 2009 The graph presented above clearly delineates that the largest number of suicides occur in young males between 15 and 44 years of age. The yearly break up of this suicide rate establishes facts much clearer than before. The annual suicide rates for males for the age categories of 45 to 74 and above 75 years of age have been consistently stable. However, the suicide rates of males between 15 and 44 years of age have seen the greatest increase. This increase witnessed phenomenal increase in 1998 and has continued to coast down to 2007 with some minor growth in 2008. Overall there is a significant increase in the number of suicides in the age bracket of 15 years to 44 years. This finding confirms some of the previous findings and establishes new facts. This graph leads to the conclusion that anomaly in suicide rates have been seen in the male population in 1998 and need to be investigated. One limitation of these statistics is the fact that a break up is not available in the 15 to 44 years age category. This would cause problems in judging if the suicide rates jumped for males in the young 15 to 24 years age bracket or the 25 to 44 years age bracket. Statistics were searched from other sources such as the Coroner’s Office but as related before, these statistics are not available elsewhere. Change of Definition Using figures and numbers from ONS means that the definition of suicide needs to be reestablished. The ONS describes suicide as (Office for National Statistics, 2011b): “...deaths given an underlying cause of intentional self-harm or injury/poisoning of undetermined intent.” Moreover, the ONS treats deaths under the above definition for individuals either 15 or more years of age. Thus suicides under 15 years of age will not be considered in the proposed research. Moreover, since the collection of suicide numbers is from official sources so little variance is expected. Also, the confidence level for the statistics presented above is at least 95% as declared by the ONS. This indicates a high level of assurance that the statistics are valid. Another definition for suicide is presented by the Coroner’s Office for suicide. This definition clearly states that suicide, self inflicted death and a deceased who took their own life are the same thing. The coroner is stipulated to comply by three conditions before declaring a verdict of suicide. (Coroner Service, 2011) These are: “deceased took his or her own life; deceased was intent on taking his or her own life; there is proof beyond reasonable doubt that the injuries sustained were self inflicted and the deceased had such intention.” These definitions differ from each other in that the first definition considers suicide as an act with an undetermined intent while the second definition considers suicide as an intended act under all circumstances. Based on the differences between these definitions, the definition from the Coroner’s Office is more comprehensive and will be considered. Comparison to the United States Figure 5 - Suicide Rates in the United States Figure 6 - Age Based Breakup of Suicide Rates A comparison of suicide rates was formed between Great Britain and the United States in order to ascertain differnces and similarties. The first graph was sourced from CDC (Centre for Disease Control and Prevention) and it clearly shows that suicide rates are far higher for men in comparison to women especially white men. (CDC, 2011) The second graph was sourced from NAHIC (National Adolescent Health Information Centre) and it clearly indicates that the suicide rates for yong males is considerably higher than that for females. More specifically males between the ages of 15 years and 24 years are far more likely to commit suicide. (NAHIC, 2006) The trend for suicide in young males is also seen to be decreasing significantly especially in the last decade while the suicide rates for females are decreasing gradually. Overall the suicide rates in Great Britain are following a similar trend however the increase in male suicide rates for the US occurs around 1995 while for Britain it occurs around 1998. Establishing Suicide’s Influences Historically suicide was a personalised problem as it had been outlawed in Great Britain. Therefore it was hard for individuals with suicidal afflictions to talk to someone about such an issue. This pushed suicide into a completely personalised quarter and suicide was treated in British society as a totally personal problem. (Samaritans, 2010) In due course of time this changed due to the efforts of people such as Chad Varah who helped people open up on this issue. However even then most dimensions of suicide still remained personalized to individuals as help lines and other such features were hard to locate. The government began collecting suicide statistics around the late 1960’s and since then suicide statistics have been compiled effectively. The transformation of suicide from a personal problem into a social one is a recent artifact that has been helped out by certain factors. The media is without a doubt one of the more powerful factors in this regard. For this reason, two leading English dailies were investigated to see the total amount of articles that discussed or disparaged suicide. The contention is that mentioning suicide is convincing a young male to look into it as an option. The newspapers that were searched include the Guardian and the Daily Mail. These newspapers were specifically chosen because they are read far and wide within the British Isles and are looked at respectively in all kinds of social circles. It can therefore be safely assumed that information appearing in these newspapers would have a direct affect on popular public opinion on certain issues. Although it may seem that the digital revolution has replaced newspapers but that is not the case as these newspapers are all available online. Moreover, the data has been collected using specialized search techniques. Moreover, the BBC’s website was traversed too in an effort to solicit media response. Searching through the websites of these newspapers is hardly of any benefit at all. Given the restrictions on total storage space on the servers of these websites, it is highly unlikely that they would store information more than a year old. Storing information as back as 1998 would cost these websites a lot of money. However, search engines and their “crawlers” keep a reference of such information in their archives as cached information in order to trend information. This capability was utilized on Google specifically for Google UK. This ensures that all the information displayed is from Great Britain or is linked to Great Britain only. Moreover, the search has been directed to the specific website in question by using the “site:” filter on Google. Dates were specified by utilizing the date filters present in the lower left sides of a typical search results page. In order to ensure that only relevant results were being displayed, the phrase “male youth suicide” was used with the “&” operator to ensure that each article displayed contained these terms. These ensured that irrelevant angles such as suicide bombing on British troops in Afghanistan by young male suicide bombers etc. were avoided. The results of the investigation are shown below separately for each source. The graph’s presented above clearly indicate that in the wake of the year 2000, the coverage provided by the Guardian to young male suicides increase significantly. The increase in Daily Mail’s share is seen to be a little slow if compared to other news resources but the increase in reporting over youth male suicides can be seen to increase significantly. The BBC on the other hand can be seen to project male youth suicide issues consistenly after which the reporting went sky high in 2001 after which it was pushed back most probably as a policy measure. This indicates that there is a direct correlation between suicide levels and social hype on suicides and the projection that media provides them. Moreover, the private aspect of suicide can be seen to be merging into a social problem with the aid of these investigations. Other Investigations into Suicide and Society A number of articles are available that demonstrate that the media has turned suicide into a social problem. Moreover, reports from New Zealand’s government also relate media and the suicide rather closely in the wake of rapidly rising suicide rates in the young male population. (Ministry of Health: New Zealand, 1999) The timeline of this report can be seen to be nearly the same as emergence of the same social problem in Britain. A study of students at Oxford University over student suicides has also linked suicide to media’s overbearing presence for a variety of cases between 1976 and 1990. (Hawton et al., 1995) Similarly another study by A. L. Berman relates the presence of close ties between media and suicide tracing the connection to as far back as the 1970’s for suicide rates in adolescents. (Berman, 1996) Another study conclusively links up media’s attention to suicide to gender based suicide patterns. The greater rates of young male suicides in comparison to female suicides have been investigated at great length. (Smalley et al., 2011) Another investigation aimed at young male suicides in Scotland clearly links media to before and after the panic that spurred the suicides. The positive and negative role of the media has been discussed at great length in this article in order to concretely prove that the media can well easily transform such issues into social phenomenon. (Stark et al., 2008) The articles used in this investigation are all from large publication journals that possess well established reputations for credibility and scientific insight. Moreover, these articles confirm the findings from the newspapers and news sources investigated before. The articles investigated all range from a large time span (from the seventies to the current day). Formulation of Research Connection Based on the arguments presented above, it is apparent that the media has an influence on suicide. However, the exact nature of the role and its precise measure of influence on suicides has not been investigated in the social context. This leads to the question of how the media turns an issue like youth male suicide into a social problem. The proposed research will focus on this question and will use the means delineated above to answer this question at length. Bibliography Beeghley, A., 2000. The Study of Social Problems. London: Routledge. Berman, A.L., 1996. Suicide Prevention in Adoloscents (ages 12-18). Suicide and Life Threatning Behaviour, 25(1), p.143. CDC, 2011. Mortality Tables. [Online] Available at: HYPERLINK "http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/mortality_tables.htm" http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/mortality_tables.htm [Accessed 30 August 2011]. Coroner Service, 2011. [Online] Justice Available at: HYPERLINK "http://www.justice.ie/en/JELR/coronersfulljob.pdf/Files/coronersfulljob.pdf" http://www.justice.ie/en/JELR/coronersfulljob.pdf/Files/coronersfulljob.pdf [Accessed 30 August 2011]. Coroner Society, 2011. Research. [Online] Available at: HYPERLINK "http://www.coronersociety.org.uk/wfResearch.aspx" http://www.coronersociety.org.uk/wfResearch.aspx [Accessed 30 August 2011]. Eitzen, D.S., Baca-Zinn, M. & Smith, K.E., 2009. Social Problems. 11th ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Hawton, K., Simkin, K. & Fagg, J., 1995. Suicide in Oxford University Students: 1976-1990. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 166(1), p.44. Hawton, K. & van Heeringen, K., 2009. Suicide. Lancet, 373(9672), p.1372–1381. Ministry of Health: New Zealand, 1999. Suicide and the Media. Wellington: Ministry of Health. NAHIC, 2006. Suicide: Adolescent and Young Adults. [Online] NAHIC Available at: HYPERLINK "http://nahic.ucsf.edu/downloads/Suicide.pdf" http://nahic.ucsf.edu/downloads/Suicide.pdf [Accessed 30 August 2011]. Nation Master, 2011. Young Male > Suicide Rates. [Online] Available at: HYPERLINK "http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_sui_rat_you_mal-health-suicide-rate-young-males" http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_sui_rat_you_mal-health-suicide-rate-young-males [Accessed 16 August 2011]. Office for Naitonal Statistics, 2011a. Suicides. [Online] Available at: HYPERLINK "http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=1092" http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=1092 [Accessed 13 August 2011]. Office for National Statistics, 2011b. Suicide Rates in the United Kingdom. [Online] Available at: HYPERLINK "http://www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/Product.asp?vlnk=13618" http://www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/Product.asp?vlnk=13618 [Accessed 13 August 2011]. Samaritans, 2010. Samaritans History. [Online] Available at: HYPERLINK "http://www.samaritans.org/about_samaritans/governance_and_history/samaritans_history.aspx" http://www.samaritans.org/about_samaritans/governance_and_history/samaritans_history.aspx [Accessed 30 August 2011]. Samaritans, 2011. Copycats and Social Contagion. [Online] Available at: HYPERLINK "http://www.samaritans.org/media_centre/copycats.aspx" http://www.samaritans.org/media_centre/copycats.aspx [Accessed 30 August 2011]. Smalley, N., Scourfield, J. & Greenland, K., 2011. Young People, Gender and Suicide. Journal of Social Work, 41, pp.131-47. Stark, C., Stockton, D. & Henderson, R., 2008. Reduction in young male suicide in Scotland. BMC Public Health, 8(80). Read More