Suicides in India: A Forecasting for Immediate Investment to Save Lives

Suicide, a preventable death, is a global public health problem. As per Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there is 1 death every 11 minutes. Seventy-seven percent of global suicides occur in low- and middle-income countries. In India, there were 12.4 suicides per lakh population, with 170924 suicides in the year 2022. To plan for an effective intervention, a predictive analysis i.e. forecasting the future risk of suicides, is more important than exploratory data analysis.

The National Crime Records Bureau, GoI, publishes annual reports every year on accidental deaths and suicides in India. Data on suicides were extracted from these reports (1967-2021). Data analysis was done using Gretl Software (2023a) with ARIMA modeling, and suicide cases were forecasted for the following 5 years (2022-2026).

There has been a gradual increase in the number of suicides in India, which started declining in the year 2012 until 2017, and then again started increasing, with a drastic increase in the number of suicides in the year 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic. Forecasting of suicides by ARIMA modeling for the next 5 years from 2022 to 2026 shows an increasing trend, with a gradual decrease in the rate of increase in the absolute number of suicides.

There is an increase in the absolute number of suicides in India. Though the rate of increase in suicides every year is going down, the absolute number of suicides is still a public health concern. This gives a warning sign for an upcoming epidemic in India; hence, it is time to invest in it to prevent these suicide events.