public health mystery

Midlife Suicide Rises, Puzzling Researchers By PATRICIA COHEN
Published: February 19, 2008 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/19/us/19suicide.html Mr. Neal is part of an unusually large increase in suicides among middle-aged Americans in recent years. Just why thousands of men and women have crossed the line between enduring life’s burdens and surrendering to them is a painful question for their loved ones. But for officials, it is a surprising and baffling public health mystery.A new five-year analysis of the nation’s death rates recently released by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the suicide rate among 45-to-54-year-olds increased nearly 20 percent from 1999 to 2004, the latest year studied, far outpacing changes in nearly every other age group. (All figures are adjusted for population.) For women 45 to 54, the rate leapt 31 percent. “That is certainly a break from trends of the past,” said Ann Haas, the research director of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. By contrast, the suicide rate for 15-to-19-year-olds increased less than 2 percent during that five-year period — and decreased among people 65 and older. The question is why. What happened in 1999 that caused the suicide rate to suddenly rise primarily for those in midlife? For health experts, it is like discovering the wreckage of a plane crash without finding the black box that recorded flight data just before the aircraft went down.

http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/suiciderates/en/
In the last 45 years suicide rates have increased by 60% worldwide. Suicide is now among the three leading causes of death among those aged 15-44 years (both sexes); these figures do not include suicide attempts up to 20 times more frequent than completed suicide.

EVOLUTION BETWEEN 2005 AND 2008 SPECIFICALLY COMPARED COMPARE WITH CHINA IN 1999
CHINA (Selected rural & urban areas) male 13.0 female 14.8
CHINA (Hong Kong SAR) [b] 16.7 male 9.8 female
COMPARE WITH
INDIA IN 1998 male 12.2 female 9.1
SUICIDE RATES OF 2008 ? INDIA CHINA ( how can that be? is this correct? not sure)
Suicides per 100,000 people per year
china in 2008 99.0
India in 2008 98.0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate
MUCH HIGHER THAN before 2005