The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented public health crisis with both physical and mental health consequences arising from the illness itself and the measures taken to prevent its spread. There are concerns that it may lead to an increase in suicides. In the first part of this webinar, we will discuss global trends in suicides in high-income and upper-to-middle income countries in the early months of the pandemic. The second half of the webinar will focus on the case of Japan, which experienced a notable increase in female suicides during the pandemic; in 2020, 935 more women died by suicide in 2020 than in 2019, whereas there were 23 fewer suicides by men. In addition, the number of student suicides in 2020 increased to the highest levels in recent history. We will discuss the likely causes of this increase in suicides and the implications for other countries.

Note for members of the press

Date: Thursday 6 May 2021

• UK Time: 12:00pm-1:00pm (BST)
• Japan Time: 8:00pm-9:00pm (GMT+9)

About the contributors

Michiko Ueda is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Political Science and Economics at Waseda University, in Tokyo, Japan. Prior to joining Waseda University, she has taught at Syracuse University and California Institute of Technology. Her research interests include suicide prevention, and public health, and public policy. Her latest publications include “Suicide and mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan” (Journal of Public Health, in press), “Mental health status of the general population in Japan during the COVID-19 pandemic.” (Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, 2020), and “Tweeting celebrity suicides: Users’ reaction to prominent suicide deaths on Twitter and subsequent increases in actual suicides” (Social Science and Medicine, 2017). She received her Ph.D. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

David Gunnell is Professor of Epidemiology at University of Bristol and a world-leading epidemiologist and public health physician. His research programme focuses on understanding life-course influences on adult mental health and suicide. He has extensive international collaborations where his work has contributed to capacity building and suicide-reduction strategies. His research is widely used in national and international prevention strategies and he has been an invited member of two WHO suicide prevention strategy groups. Professor Gunnell’s research has contributed to the introduction of UK and global prevention initiatives, including restricting access to toxic pesticides, the erection of barriers on popular suicide locations and recommendations about anti-depressant prescribing. He leads the International COVID-19 Suicide Prevention Research Collaboration (ICSPRC).

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