Releases
This section provides links to research papers, articles and other information developed by the AIHW, collaborators of the AIHW and other subject matter experts. These resources provide more comprehensive discussion and context, and are useful when interpreting the Suicide & self-harm monitoring data.
Featured reports
From euphoria to wellbeing: Correlates of gender euphoria and its association with mental wellbeing among transgender adults
Authors:
Dr Ruby Grant
Dr Natalie Amos
Teddy Cook
Associate Professor Ashleigh Lin
Dr Adam Hill
Marina Carman
Professor Adam Bourne
28 August 2024
This work was supported by Victorian Government Department of Health and Human Services and the Victorian Government Department of Premier and Cabinet. AL is funded by a NHMRC Investigator Grant [#2010063]. Secondary analyses reported in this article were supported with funding from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.
This article aims to explore factors that are associated with experiencing gender euphoria among trans adults in Australia, as well as identifying any correlation between gender euphoria and mental health within this population.
PDF | 1,144 KB
Mental health and wellbeing outcomes associated with social, medical, and legal gender affirmation among trans young people in Australia
Authors:
Dr Ruby Grant
Dr Natalie Amos
Associate Professor Ashleigh Lin
Teddy Cook
Dr Adam O. Hill
Dr Ken Pang
Professor Rachel S. Skinner
Marina Carman
Professor Adam Bourne
28 August 2024
This work was supported by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Australian Government; Department of Health, New South Wales Government; Department of Premier and Cabinet, State Government of Victoria; National Health and Medical Research Council; SHINE SA (with support from the Office of the Chief Psychiatrist in South Australia); Australian Capital Territory Office of LGBTIQ+ Affairs.
This study examined the mental health outcomes associated with social, medical, and legal gender affirmation among trans young people in Australia.
PDF | 1,515 KB
Feasibility Study for Identifying Suicide Clusters Using Real-time Coronial Data
Report prepared by
Leo Roberts
Angela Clapperton
Matthew Spittal
Centre for Mental Health
The University of Melbourne
28 September 2023
This report contains information about the collection and reporting of suicide in Victoria.
Building on the work of Coroners Court of Victoria in developing a real-time suicide register and the author's previous work on suicide cluster detection using various data sources, the overarching aim was to test the feasibility of using the Victorian Suicide Register to undertake regular monitoring of suicide clusters in Victoria.
The key research question was: Can modern cluster detection methods be used on real-time data with precise geocoordinates to monitor the emergence of suicide clusters?
PDF | 477 KB
Spatiotemporal Analysis of Australian Suicide Deaths and Other Deaths of Despair Between 2001 and 2020
Authors:
Professor Nicholas Biddle
Lucy Ellen
8 December 2022
Analysis of suicide monitoring data at smaller specified units of geography and time, and considering possible associations with other causes of death, has the potential to provide important information upon which to design prevention and intervention initiatives. The authors constructed and analysed a subset of the National Mortality database which included Australian wide deaths occurring and registered between 2001 and 2020.
PDF | 370 KB
Evaluation of the National Suicide and Self-harm Monitoring Project and System|Final Report
Authors:
Anna Flego
Georgia Dempster
Tessa Cutler
Associate Professor Jo Robinson
Professor Jane Pirkis
26 July 2022
The University of Melbourne was commissioned by the AIHW to undertake an evaluation of the National Suicide and Self-Harm Monitoring Project and System.
This Final Evaluation Report provides an overview of evaluation activities conducted between May 2020 and December 2021.
The purpose of the evaluation was to assess the development of the System, as well as the initial performance and effectiveness of the System. Evaluation findings shall inform future quality improvements of the System.
PDF | 215 KB
PDF | 980 KB
PDF | 2 MB
Social and economic factors associated with suicide in Australia: a focus on individual income
Authors:
Professor Nicholas Biddle
Dinith Marasinghe
Lucy Ellen
26 July 2022
The Australian National University’s Centre for Social Research and Methods (CSRM) was commissioned by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) to conduct further analysis on social and economic factors associated with suicide using the Multi-Agency Data Integration (MADIP) linked data asset.
This work produced a regression model including income level, income uncertainty, and unemployment associated with death by suicide.
This report has accompanying data tables.
PDF | 560 KB
Suicide mortality in Australia: Estimating and projecting monthly variation and trends from 2007 to 2018 and beyond
Authors:
Professor Nicholas Biddle
Lucy Ellen
Associate Professor Rosemary Korda
Dr Karuna Reddy
28 September 2020
Addendum: 9 December 2021
In analysing trends in suicide rates it is important to assess whether changes are genuine or whether they simply reflect expected data variation. In other OECD countries such as the US and the UK it is common practice to assess whether changes in suicide rates are statistically significant. In this paper Biddle et al. assess the statistical properties of the monthly suicide rate in Australia from 2007 to 2018. Over this whole period suicide rates rose nationally and in New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia but were flat in other jurisdictions. The authors show that nationally, suicide rates were fairly steady from 2007 to 2010 but rose from 2010 to 2015 and have shown no clear trend since 2015. Overall, this pattern is quite similar for males and females however, death rates for males appear to have been approximately 3 times greater than for females at any given point in time. The authors also find clear seasonal patterns with January and February having the highest suicide rates and April to July having the lowest rates.
The addendum provides a descriptive comparison of the monthly forecasted deaths for the period of January 2019 till November 2019 from Biddle, Ellen, Korda and Reddy, with preliminary suicide deaths data for this same period, adjusted for the expected revisions process.
This report has accompanying data tables.
Australian suicide and hospitalised self-harm monitoring data: A Scoping review of analytic methods used within the peer reviewed literature
Authors:
Lucy Ellen
Professor Nicholas Biddle
9 December 2021
This scoping review identifies and describes the peer reviewed academic literature that uses Australian suicide and hospitalised self-harm monitoring data. The aim was to outline the analytic strategies authors use to draw meanings from this monitoring data, with a particular focus on change across time and spatial variance of suicide and hospitalised self-harm.
This report has accompanying data tables.
PDF | 696 KB
Patterns of suicide in the context of COVID-19: Evidence from three Australian states
Authors:
Dr Angela Clapperton
Associate Professor Matthew Spittal
Dr Jeremy Dwyer
Dr Andrew Garrett
Dr Kairi Kõlves
Dr Stuart Leske
Ciara Millar
Bronwen Edwards
Professor Jane Pirkis
8 December 2021
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) commissioned the University of Melbourne to conduct a study investigating whether there has been a change in the number of suicides occurring overall and in age and sex subgroups since the COVID-19 pandemic began. It also examined whether particular risk factors for suicide (namely relationship breakdown, financial stressors, unemployment, and homelessness) become more prominent as contributing factors for suicide during the pandemic.
PDF | 450 KB
Suicide in Australia: Trends and analysis 1964 to 2018
Authors:
AIHW
Henley G & Harrison JE
28 September 2020
Suicide rates at ages 10 years and older were examined for the Australian men and women born in each 5-year period from 1954–58 to 2004–08. Suicide rates for the most recently-born male cohorts are similar to, or lower than, earlier male cohorts at the same age. Suicide rates for the most recently-born female cohorts are higher than those for earlier female cohorts at the same age.
This report has accompanying data tables and data visualisations in Suicide & self-harm monitoring.
PDF | 2 MB
Consultations
National Suicide and Self-Harm Monitoring Project and System|Data Requirements for the Portal
Authors:
Phillippa Butt
Matthew Phillips
Johnny Chen
John Kershaw
Janey McGoldrick
26 July 2022
The AIHW contracted SAS Institute Australia and the Black Dog Institute, to conduct consultations with PHNs to identify key data priorities for the Suicide and self-harm monitoring system secure portal.
Feedback received included themes around data on risk factors leading up to a suicide, geocoded data at a finer level, and providing excel documents for further data analysis. These ideas were incorporated into the release of the portal in December and will inform continuous improvement of the System.
PDF | 4.5 MB
Consultation with young people - Suicide & self-harm monitoring website - Summary report
9 December 2021
The AIHW and the National Mental Health Commission partnered with Orygen to hear from young people about their needs for suicide and self-harm information and their experience of the Suicide & self-harm monitoring website.
We heard that young people want to increase their knowledge of suicide to help themselves and their community, and that the website was a useful resource to do this.
We also heard that the website’s accessibility and functionality could be enhanced to improve engagement.
The AIHW are currently working on improving the website based on the feedback received.
PDF | 268 KB
Related publications
National Surveillance System for Alcohol and Other Drug Misuse and Overdose
The National Ambulance Surveillance System (NASS-AOD) is a novel surveillance system for alcohol and other drug related ambulance attendances. This is a collaborative project between Turning Point and jurisdictional ambulance services. The project has been funded by the Commonwealth Department of Health and the Victorian Department of Human Services (Victorian data).
The AOD related ambulance attendances reported by Turning Point provided the basis for the suicide and self-harm related ambulance attendances reporting that is included in Suicide and self-harm monitoring. These reports are provided for context.
National Surveillance System for Alcohol and Other Drug Misuse and Overdose: January – December 2019 Data Author: Moayeri et al. |
PDF | 4.1MB |
National Surveillance System for Alcohol and Other Drug Misuse and Overdose: January – December 2018 Data Author: Moayeri et al. 2019 |
PDF | 4.3MB |
National Surveillance System for Alcohol and Other Drug Misuse and Overdose: January - December 2017 data Author: Moayeri et al. 2018 |
PDF | 3.6MB |
National Surveillance System for Alcohol and Other Drug Misuse and Overdose: January - December 2016 data Author: Faulkner et al. 2017 |
PDF | 3.1MB |