The National Statistics Institute releases suicide mortality data for 2023 in Spain: the crude mortality rate stands at 8.5 per 100,000 inhabitants

On Tuesday 17 December, the National Statistics Institute (INE) has released the consolidated data on deaths from all causes in Spain for the year 2023, the year in which the end of the COVID-19 pandemic was declared. In relation to the cause of death by suicide, the total number of deaths is 4116, according to forensic certificated indexes. In its report of June 2024 (https://www.ine.es/dyngs/Prensa/es/pEDCM2023.pdf), the INE provisionally estimated a total number of 3952 people died by suicide. The final statistics show a 4.1% increase in mortality.

The data show that the young population (up to 29 years of age) accounts for 8.8% of deaths by suicide, while 61.2% of mortality occurs in the adult population (30-64 years of age). Suicide mortality in the older population is 30%. Again, it can be seen that almost 74% of suicide deaths occur in men. The gross number of people who died in 2023 by autonomous community is shown in the figure below.

Suicide mortality decreased by 2.6% in comparison to previous year, with a crude mortality rate of 8.5 per 100,000 population. A reduction in the rate can be perceived, but the reduction does not reach a mortality rate lower than the pre-pandemic times, being mortality rate in 2019 of 7.82 per 100,000 inhabitants (see: https://www.plataformanacionalsuicidio.es/mapa). Moreover, the decrease in mortality seems very distant to rate growth in the pandemic years, which was around 5% per year (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0924977X24000427).

Data can be consulted here:

https://www.ine.es/jaxiT3/Tabla.htm?t=7947