Europe: Unemployment rate linked to rise in suicides

Soaring unemployment rates across Europe caused by economic policies are a ‘public health emergency’, doctors heard at a seminar on health inequalities.

Former BMA president Professor Sir Michael Marmot, author of the Fair Society, Healthy Lives report, told an interactive symposium on social and health inequalities that for every 1 per cent rise in unemployment in Europe there was a 0.8 per cent rise in suicides.

Sir Michael, director of the University College London Institute of Health Equity, in a speech entitled Social Determinants and Health Inequalities: What Can Doctors Do? raised concerns about the health impact of unemployment of up to 50 per cent in Spain, Portugal and Greece and 25 per cent unemployment among youth in the UK…

via BMA – Europe’s unemployment rate linked to rise in suicides.

Related articles

• Wellesley Institute | Growing health inequalities are ‘public health emergency’ warns Sir Michael Marmot.
• France – Lessons on Youth Unemployment and Youth Employment Policy
• Euro area unemployment hits record high
• How Unemployment Leave Europe’s Young ?