OpinionHow Hong Kong’s suicide prevention efforts can help reduce the global impact of Covid-19 on mental health

Name: Mental health during Covid-19: ‘Be patient and kind to yourself’ as plans fall through
Uploaded: 2020-09-10T01:45:12.000Z
Duration: 5 min 42 s
Description: Mental health during Covid-19: ‘Be patient and kind to yourself’ as plans fall through

Hong Kong has faced many challenges in 2020 and its strong social support networks and resilience learned from Sars can help inform global efforts to better understand the impact of the pandemic on suicide and mental health

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While there is some encouraging news of reduced rates of suicide among young people in Hong Kong, there remains much work to be done in increasing access to mental health resources and mitigating the impact of the pandemic. Photo: Shutterstock

Paul Yip

Published: 9:45am, 10 Sep 2020Updated: 10:13am, 10 Sep 2020

September 10 is World Suicide Prevention Day, the annual event to help those in distress across the globe. It offers an opportunity to highlight a major public health issue in suicide and encourages us to engage with each other and spread awareness of suicide prevention. The theme this year, “Working Together to Prevent Suicide”, is fitting since we have a shared global experience of working together to fight the threat of Covid-19.

Covid-19 has infected more than 27 million people worldwide and claimed more than 890,000 lives, and it is still spreading. The world economy faces a severe challenge, the economic recession is deep and likely to be long, and unemployment is having an adverse impact on people’s mental health as many companies are laying off workers. The suicide rate is expected to go up, making suicide prevention more timely and relevant.

In 2019, the suicide rate in Hong Kong was around 13 per 100,000 people, higher than the 12.3 figure in 2018. Hong Kong is an ageing society, and the suicide rate among older adults is nearly twice the population average. For an international comparison, Hong Kong’s age-standardised rate was estimated at 9.7 in 2019, which is still lower than the global rate of 10.5.

The elderly population consistently has the highest rate among different age groups. Social isolation, anxiety and poor health conditions are some of the major concerns of older adults, arising especially from quarantine measures. Women aged 25 to 39, particularly low-income and working women, have also experienced a significant increase.

On the other hand, we have seen some encouraging improvement in the suicide rate among younger people aged 15 to 24. The rise of student suicides has been somewhat contained, though more work needs to be done to address their concerns holistically. Inspiring hope and providing youth mobility would help mitigate stress among our young people.

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Mental health during Covid-19: ‘Be patient and kind to yourself’ as plans fall through

There has been no significant increase in suicide among our youth during the protest movement. Such claims are media-induced myths and should be discouraged to avoid the copycat effect. This decline in suicide among youth can be attributed to the diligent efforts by many segments of society to provide support.