文章分析了圭亚那和苏里南等国家的高自杀率，并指出印度裔圭亚那人占圭亚那自杀人数的80%，而印度裔圭亚那人的祖籍地却并非印度高自杀率地区。文章还提到，圭亚那和苏里南都是多民族国家，且存在贫困和犯罪问题，但这并非导致其高自杀率的唯一原因。

🤔文章首先分析了圭亚那高自杀率的原因，并指出该国虽然存在贫困和犯罪问题，但与邻国巴西和委内瑞拉相比并不严重。圭亚那是一个多民族国家，文章作者发现，印度裔圭亚那人占圭亚那自杀人数的80%，这引发了对该群体自杀率高的疑问。

🧐文章指出，印度本身的平均自杀率较高，但不同地区的自杀率差异很大，例如锡金州的自杀率高于世界上任何国家，而比哈尔邦的自杀率则低于世界上除巴巴多斯以外的任何国家。而印度裔圭亚那人主要来自比哈尔邦和其他低自杀率地区。

👨‍🏫文章作者通过调查发现，印度裔圭亚那人的祖籍地自杀率并不高，这表明圭亚那高自杀率可能与其他因素有关。文章作者认为，圭亚那高自杀率可能与该国独特的社会文化环境有关，例如，印度裔圭亚那人可能面临着种族歧视和社会排斥等问题。

💡文章作者还指出，苏里南也存在高自杀率，其印度裔人口比例也与圭亚那相似。这进一步支持了印度裔圭亚那人的自杀率可能与该群体在圭亚那的社会文化环境有关。

🌎文章的结论是，圭亚那高自杀率并非仅仅由贫困和犯罪问题导致，而是与该国独特的社会文化环境有关。这表明，在解决自杀问题时，需要关注社会文化因素的影响。

https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/02/05/suicide-hotspots-of-the-world/

 

[Content warning: suicide, rape, child abuse. Thanks to MC for some help with research.]

I.

Guyana has the highest national suicide rate in the world, 30 people per year per 100,000. Guyana has poverty and crime and those things, but no more so than neighboring Brazil (suicide rate of 6) or Venezuela (suicide rate of 4). What’s going on?

One place to start: Guyana is a multi-ethnic country. Is its sky-high suicide rate focused in one ethnic group? The first answer I found was this article by a social justice warrior telling us it constitutes racial “essentialism” to even ask the question. But in the process of telling us exactly what kind of claims we should avoid, she mentions someone bringing up that “80% of the reported suicides are carried out by Indo-Guyanese”. I feel like one of those classicists who has reconstructed a lost heresy through hostile quotations in Irenaeus.

Indo-Guyanese aren’t American Indians; they’re from actual India. Apparently thousands of Indians immigrated to Guyana as indentured laborers in the late 1800s. Most went to Guyana, and somewhat fewer went to neighboring Suriname. Suriname also has a sky-high suicide rate, but slightly less than Guyana’s, to the exact degree that its Indian population is slightly less than Guyana’s. Basically no Indians went anywhere else in South America, and nowhere else in South America has anywhere near the suicide rate of these two countries. The most Indian regions of Guyana also have the highest suicide rate. Hmmm.

Does India itself have high suicide rates? On average, yes. But India has a lot of weird suicide microclimates. Statewide rates range from from 38 in Sikkim (higher than any country in the world) to 0.5 in Bihar (lower than any country in the world except Barbados). Indo-Guyanese mostly come from Bihar and other low-suicide regions. While I can’t rule out that the Indo-Guyanese come from some micro-micro-climate of higher suicidality, this guy claims to have traced them back to some of their ancestral villages and found that those villages have low suicide rates.