Suicide rates for South Asian women

You asked

Please provide:

1. The number of South Asian women in England that have committed suicide in the past five years from January 2011 to January 2016

2. The national average for women that have attempted suicide in England in the past five years from January 2011 to January 2016 [I would like to request data breaking down the women's different ethnicities, if possible]

3. The number of South Asian women in England that have attempted suicide in the past five years from January 2011 to January 2016

We said

Thank you for your query regarding suicide in South Asian women in England. We produce an annual report on deaths from suicide in the United Kingdom. The latest report for deaths registered in 2014 is available on our website:

http://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/suicidesintheunitedkingdom/previousReleases

This report contains downloadable Excel tables providing figures on suicides by country, region, sex, age and suicide method, from 1981 onwards. Provisional figures on suicides registered in 2015 are also available on our website:

http://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/causesofdeath/adhocs/006086suicideinenglandandwales2015registrations/wspd2015ew.xls

A full report containing final figures for suicides registered in 2015 will be published by February 2017. Finalised data for suicides registered in 2016 will be published by February 2018, but we are planning to release provisional data in 2017.

Unfortunately the ethnicity of the deceased is not collected at death registration, so we are unable to provide the number of suicides in South Asian women. We do hold information on the deceased's country of birth, but this is not a very good indicator of a person's ethnicity, as many people of South Asian descent will have been born in the UK.

Special extracts and tabulations of mortality data for England and Wales, including suicide statistics by country of birth, are available to order (subject to legal frameworks, disclosure control, resources and agreements of costs, where appropriate). We recommend that you contact the Mortality Analysis team directly in order to discuss your data requirements in more detail. Such enquiries should be made to: mortality@ons.gov.uk.

We only hold data on deaths from suicide, so we are unable to provide any statistics on attempted suicide. I would suggest contacting NHS digital who may be able to provide statistics on attempted suicides and self-harm: http://content.digital.nhs.uk/home