My PhD research looked into the Office for National Statistics’s (2021) reporting of ‘mixed and multiple ethnic’ populations as dying at amongst the highest rates of suicide in the UK, and the lack of prevention response.
Below I share some resources for accessing and reading the UK’s suicide by ethnicity statistics. I generated this based on a request from someone with interest in accessing the statistics for researching suicide among Black communities:
Here is the link to the Office for National Statistics’ mortality (including suicide) by ethnicity data Mortality from leading causes of death by ethnic group, England and Wales – Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk). This was the first time the ONS reported mortality by ethnicity (2021). The reporting periods are 2012-2019 (ethnicity by mortality data is not available prior to 2012). If you look into the methodology, they have been able to get mortality data by ethnicity by ‘linking’ death certificates with self-reported ethnicity on the census, using NHS numbers. This process of reporting mortality by ethnicity was accelerated by ethnic inequalities in covid deaths.
Scroll down to the ‘suicide’ heading which reports white and mixed men as dying at the highest rates. Mixed women are also reported to die at high rates.
Black Caribbean and Black African populations are reported (and the mixed category also includes white and black Caribbean; white and black African) since the ONS use the census ethnicity categories List of ethnic groups – GOV.UK (ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk)
If you download the data set (see screenshot above – the green button below ‘download this chart’) you can see the actual rates per Black populations
Here I have highlighted the rates (per 100,000 males). Unfortunately the ONS do not disaggregate the mixed population, so we can’t see the rates of black mixed populations apart from absorbed into the broader ‘mixed’ category.
You could also do this for the female data.
I am not aware of any reports highlighting suicide among these populations, but I recommend checking out the Samaritans ‘ethnicity and suicide’ policy position which was written in response to the ONS statistics Ethnicity and suicide | Samaritans
In terms of how to interpret the statistics, in my work I have problematised the reporting of white men as dying at the highest rates, given they are potentially the most ‘visible’ and their deaths easier to be counted within current suicide knowledge. Also, the white category is not disaggregated between white British, Irish, Traveller, Eastern European etc.
*update – see next post to interpret the Lancet paper which came out in August 2024 – which does disaggregate between the white and mixed ethnicity categories (and some useful additional analysis on age and sex) https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(24)00184-6/fulltext *
I would love to hear from others working in this area and interpreting the ONS’s suicide by ethnicity statistics (especially from a feminist STS perspective!). My email is eyue@ed.ac.uk
Dr Emily Yue
Research Fellow on Discovering Liveability
Research Assistant on Sea to Spruce
@McNuttYue
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