Suicide among Russians in Estonia: database study before and after independence

doi:10.1136/bmj.38328.454294.55

BMJ 2005;330:176-177 (22 January), doi:10.1136/bmj.38328.454294.55 (published 15 December 2004)

Paper

Suicide among Russians in Estonia: database study before and after independence

Airi Värnik, director, professor of psychiatry¹, Kairi Kõlves, researcher¹, Danuta Wasserman, professor of psychiatry and suicidology²

¹ Estonian-Swedish Institute of Suicidology, Hariduse 6, Tallinn 10119, Estonia, ² Swedish National and Stockholm County Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention of Mental Ill-Health (NASP), Karolinska Institute, Stockholm

Correspondence to: A Värnik Airi.Varnik@ipm.ki.se

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Introduction

Migration has been reported as an important risk factor forsuicide. Immigrants have a higher risk than exists in theircountries of origin and than among the native population oftheir new country.^1
2 According to the 1934 population census,before the second world war native Estonians constituted 88.1%of the total population of Estonia. By 1989, however, becauseof geopolitical changes related to the incorporation of Estoniainto the Soviet Union, the Russian minority had grown to about30%. We examined how the radically changed sociopolitical statusof the Russian minority after the dissolution of the SovietUnion was reflected in their suicide rates.

Methods and results

We compared suicide rates of Russians in Estonia, Estoniansin Estonia, and inhabitants of Russia from before (1983-90)and after the dissolution of the Soviet Union during Estonianindependence (1991-8). We collected data from the World HealthOrganization reports on age adjusted suicide rates for the . . . [Full text of this article]

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This article has been cited by other articles:

Polluste, K., Mannik, G., Axelsson, R. (2005). Public health reforms in Estonia: impact on the health of the population. BMJ 331: 210-213 [Full text]

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