Urban geographies of suicide in three Latin American capital cities

Although a handful of studies have examined the geography of suicide in Latin American cities, comparative analyses across different cities remain scarce. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to describe the geography of suicide and its associated area-level factors in Lima, San José and Santiago during the period 2017 to 2023.

Bayesian hierarchical models were used to estimate suicide risk and its association with two key area-level factors: (1) an index of social fragmentation and (2) the percentage of the population aged 25 or older with completed tertiary or university education, as an indicator of socioeconomic status.

The relative risk of suicide revealed distinct geographic concentrations in the three cities. In Lima, suicide risk was positively associated with the social fragmentation index but showed no association with socioeconomic status. In Santiago, only a negative association was observed between suicide risk and socioeconomic status. In contrast, San José showed no significant associations between suicide risk and either socioeconomic status or social fragmentation indicators. Additionally, in San José, suicide risk was positively associated with the percentage of the migrant population.

Our findings provide evidence of weakened social ties associated with increased suicide risk in Lima and San José, though this pattern was not observed in Santiago, where poverty emerged as a key factor linked to suicide.