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Summary An alarming increase has been recorded in suicides in Europe owing to joblessness.
An increase of one percent in unemployment results in an increase of 0.8 in suicide rate reveals a recent study. “Suicides are just the tip of the iceberg as compared to the increase in depression,” said David Stuckler of the University of Cambridge. “We’re seeing signs of a mental health crisis.”Stuckler and his colleagues said they had seen a “steady downward trend” in suicide rates in the years before 2007, which “reversed at once” as unemployment surged by about 35 percent in European Union member nations between 2007 and 2009.In Greece suicide rate increased by19 percent, to a total of 391 between 2007 and 2009. In Ireland, the number of suicides rose 15 percent over the same period to 527 as unemployment almost tripled since the first quarter of 2008. In the U.K., the number of suicides rose almost 9 percent to 4,245 in 2009 from 2007, according to Stuckler.
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