Suicidal acts in the Dutch context

This project was co-financed by ODISSEI in the 2019 MAG call for proposals.
Researcher: Katya Ivanova, University of Amsterdam

Suicide rates differ considerably across nations and the Netherland is not among the countries with highest rates. Yet, recent statistics show an upward trend in the rate of suicides in the Netherlands over the past decade. The goal of this project is to examine the socioeconomic and family-related drivers of suicidal behaviours of Dutch men and women.

The microdata of the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) provide a number of unique opportunities to push the understanding of suicidal acts forward. Foremost, the major advantage of the Dutch register data is the fact that they enable the dynamic study of individual life-courses prior to carrying out a suicidal act. Second, these data allow for the study of both suicide attempts and successful suicides by using information from the National Medical Registration, as well as from the official Dutch registry of causes of death. Finally, the CBS microdata allow for better contextualization of the population of interest.

Image: Piqsels via CC0