Public stigma makes it more difficult for people with suicidal thoughts to seek treatment and receive social support, Taiwanese Society of Suicidology (TSS) president Lee Ming-Been (李明濱) said yesterday ahead of tomorrow’s World Suicide Prevention Day.
Suicide is a global problem, with about 1 million suicides committed each year, or about one every 40 seconds, and a suicide attempt every four seconds, the TSS said.
“In Taiwan, the total number of suicides last year was 3,766, an increase from the figure recorded in 2011, but still lower than the peak of 4,406 seen in 2006,” Lee said. “Following the establishment of the Taiwan Suicide Prevention Center by the government in 2005, suicide rates have been decreasing since 2007 and dropped out of the top 10 leading causes of death in 2010.”
A survey by the center showed that 7.3 percent of respondents older than 15 are emotionally distressed, 52.4 percent of which say they have contemplated suicide.
Less than one-quarter of those who reported being emotionally distressed (24.6 percent) sought medical attention, TSS secretary-general Liao Shih-cheng (廖士程) said.
Experts say societal prejudice is a factor in deterring people from seeking assistance, Liao said.
This year’s survey was expanded to assess awareness of and societal attitudes toward suicide and people who take their own lives, the center said.
The poll found that 87.3 percent of those surveyed think suicide is irresponsible, 81.7 percent believe it is selfish and 59.6 percent consider it to be an “easy way out.”
However, 70.7 percent said that suicide should be publicly discussed and 62.2 percent expressed a willingness to contribute to suicide prevention efforts, Liao said.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not