The Importance of Alcoholic Beverage Type for Suicide in Japan: A Time-Series Analysis, Thor Norström, Andrew Stickley, Kenji Shibuya

Alcohol is a risk factor for suicide Follow-up studies of heavy drinkers Retrospective studies of suicide victims

Why heavy drinking  deterioration of social ties heavy drinking  depression intoxication  lower self-control  triggering of suicidal impulses

Aggregate level Increased per capita alcohol consumption  more heavy drinking  more suicides Numerous studies support the aggregate link

Contingencies Stronger link in northern than in southern Europe Spirits and beer more important than wine: why?

Japan and suicide Japan has one of the highest suicide rates in the world: females: 14/100’; males: 40/100’ (2*Sweden) Individual-level data confirm alcohol as risk factor BUT: no aggregate link in previous studies

This study Recall beverage specific effects Total consumption too crude measure if only spirits matter

Aim To estimate beverage-specific effects on suicide in Japan

Data consumption per capita (15+) of beer, wine, spirits and other alcohol (sales data) suicide rates for the ages for females and males control variable: unemployment study period: 1963 to 2007

Method Time series analysis of differenced data (ARIMA)

Results 1-litre increase in spirits consumption  20% increase in male suicides unemployment increase of 1 %-point  13% increase in male suicides no effects on female suicides

Policy implications increase the low prices on spirits reduce the availability of alcohol from 24/7 discourage the practice of heavy drinking