You asked
Please provide information on adolescent suicide in the years of 2017-18 and 2018-19. The latest figures that I could find from you were 2012 and 2013.
The information I would like is:
The number of adolescent suicides from 2017 to 2019.
A breakdown of age (from 13 - 18).
A breakdown of the four nations (How many in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland).
A breakdown of the type of suicide (Overdose, hanging, jumping etc).
We said
Thank you for your query.
Please find the answers to your questions below.
1. The number of adolescent suicides from 2017 to 2019.
Our annual release, suicides in the UK, provides the latest available data for deaths caused by suicide. The most recent bulletin is for deaths registered in 2018, and includes a timeseries since 1981.
2018 is the latest available year of complete death registrations. Suicide registrations in 2019 will be published in September 2020. Consequently, 2019 suicide data is regarded as exempt according to Section 22 (1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, whereby information is exempt from release if there is a view to publish the information in the future.
This exemption is subject to a public interest test. Whilst we recognise the desirability of information being freely available, we also acknowledge that public authorities must have the freedom to be able to determine their own publication timetables. This allows them to deal with the necessary preparation, administration, and context of publication. Furthermore, public interest is best served through the public having confidence that the information published by ONS is accurate and final. Release on an ad-hoc basis would not achieve this aim and will cause unnecessary confusion if they were to be misrepresented. In this case, exempting the information clearly outweighs the public interest in disclosure.
2. A breakdown of age (from 13 - 18).
Table 8 in the accompanying datasets provides the number of suicides by year of death registration among those aged 10 to 14 years and 15 to 19 years in the UK. Separate data for England and Wales by age are published in Tables 10 and 11 respectively. Similar figures based on the year of death are also published.
3. A breakdown of the four nations (How many in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland).
The number of suicides by year of death registration in Scotland and Northern Ireland are also published in the accompanying datasets (Tables 5 and 6), but only by sex. Suicide registrations data by age need to be requested from the National Records of Scotland and Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency. They can be contacted at foi@nrscotland.gov.uk and info@nisra.gov.uk respectively.
4. A breakdown of the type of suicide (Overdose, hanging, jumping etc).
Data on method of suicide are available in Table 20 of our accompanying datasets, but unfortunately only by sex.
Please also see the following bespoke outputs, which may be of interest:
- Number of suicides by sex, age group and method, England and Wales, deaths registered between 1968 and 2018
- Number of suicides for 10 to 18 year olds, regions of England and Wales: deaths registered 2014 to 2018
Number of suicides by single year of age, England and Wales, 2018 registrations
Bespoke analyses of deaths caused by suicide and other causes of mortality, including further analysis by age, may be commissioned independently. Such services would fall outside of the Freedom of Information regime and would be subject to legal frameworks, disclosure control, resources and agreement of costs where appropriate. If this is something you would be interested in, please contact the Lifestyle and Risk Factors Analysis Branch via Health.Data@ons.gov.uk.