Sunny days may boost suicide rate
The curious link between seasons and suicide rates dates back more than a century. Studies have consistently found a higher suicide rate during spring and a lower rate during winter. It is possible the weather and sunshine are driving the trend, but there are also other seasonal factors that could affect suicidal behaviors — for example, holidays, social bonds, variations in unemployment rate and access to doctors, scientists have hypothesized.
In the new study, researchers looked directly at the number of hours of sunshine for any given day between 1970 and 2010, and nearly 70,000 suicides that occurred in Austria during that time. Austria has a humid continental climate with four seasons, including hot summers and cold winters. Other countries with similar climates include Japan and eastern North America. For the study, researchers used data from 86 meteorological stations in Austria to calculate the number of hours of sunshine per day.
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