
Suicide now leading cause of death among children aged 10 to 14 in Japan - Ultramanoid
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/03/22/national/suicide-now-leading-cause-death-among-children-aged-10-14-japan/
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Ultramanoid
> _A recent trend in Japan in which suicides by children surge just after
> holidays, such as the spring and summer vacations, has become a major social
> issue._

Back to school. Bullying in Japan is a real everyday issue for many kids, can
be extremely cruel, and a very common problem, despite recent attempts to curb
it.

~~~
HNLurker2
Anecdotally after holidays a girl who commutes by train thst i know. Jumped of
a bridge (survived and unfortunately lost leg). It happened right after winter
holidays. It shocked me to this day.

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Simulacra
What this article is missing is the cultural significance of suicide in Japan.
There are suicide clubs!

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caprese
My observation is the most suicide discussion has greatly reduced suicide to
the point that there isn't a discussion.

On Quora I once explained to a perplexed Chinese poster that our culture aims
to avoid suicide and views it as a non-option, as she didn't understand why
the other people were ignoring her obvious easier solution to what she
considered undesirable failure.

"Suicide is to be prevented" doesn't address different cultures, and it barely
addresses what people go through in the west, because people don't talk about
it and don't want to. Lots of people want to talk you out of it and explain
how it affects other people, nobody addresses the underlying issue or dead-
ends people run into.

I would say the counterproductive nature of this messaging is - by definition
- making it clearer that suicide is a viable option. So if we want to actually
prevent suicide, we have to go deeper and give people purpose if their
underlying issue can't be addressed.

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youeseh
Well, thats kind of a good thing, right? \- They probably made everything
safe. \- They probably made everyone healthy through good diet, hygiene,
medical care etc.

So whats left? Isn't suicide an acceptable way to die in Japan?

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analognoise
I had to read your comment like 4 times to get what you're trying to say - you
mean that there's so little chance of dying from something else (violence,
disease, etc) that something that's really difficult to control and relatively
rare is the most common cause of death (suicide), right?

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mirimir
TFA doesn't provide enough information to know whether the suicide rate is
unusually high, or other causes are unusually low. What it says about causes
of death for children aged 10 to 14:

suicide: 22.9%

cancer: 22.7%

accidents: 11.7%

In the US, the major causes of death among children and adolescents are motor
vehicle crashes and firearm injuries, and then cancers.[0] So maybe, with
somewhat less motor vehicles and far less firearms, the suicide rate in Japan
_is_ unusual.

Maybe a Japanese speaker could find the actual data.

0) [https://sci-hub.tw/10.1056/NEJMsr1804754](https://sci-
hub.tw/10.1056/NEJMsr1804754)

~~~
Ultramanoid
I'd be very suspicious of the 'accidents' section and would like to see
detailed data about it myself.

Many people run over by trains ( to mention a relatively common occurrence in
Tokyo ) are put in the 'accidents' statistic chart as well, even when it is no
such thing in some cases, but a clear, deliberate suicidal act. I speak from
personal experience, and not just once. For many reasons, even though it's
obvious for everyone and there might even be witnesses to the event, better to
avoid the stigma.

Likewise in Real Estate companies having to disclose such events in their
properties. Much easier to deal with an 'accident' than a 'suicide' in an
otherwise perfectly good apartment.

The issue is probably underreported in every demographic, children and pre-
teens included.

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mirimir
I suspect that many motor vehicle and firearms "accidents" are actually
suicides. Maybe not overt, but in a "death wish" sense. I was like that a lot
in my teens and 20s. And even more recently, while I was taking SSRIs.

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bootcode
TLDR as stated in the title and we don't have a single clue why.

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anotheryou
And it sounds like they only want to detect it early to prevent it and don't
even look for a root cause to tackle...

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unforeseen9991
Why is this on hacker news?

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pmart123
Well, there’s a fair amount of startups working on mental health, and this
illustrates there is a real human problem to solve versus another food
delivery app. Also, maybe someone who is data driven and motivated could try
to more deeply analyze the data?

