Ma Ya Didn't tell me 70% of Accidental Deaths Were Men

Giselle · 16-02-2011 01:43AM

Men being the major breadwinners in many families might be more likely to take out accidental death cover surely? I'm sure there aren't more women claiments because there might be less women insured for it, which might explain some of the disparity, as well as occupational hazards.

Is it not also true that suicide attempts by women tend to favour less decisive methods? Men are more likely to shoot or hang themselves for example, whereas women overdose or cut themselves, leaving an opportunity to be found before death occurs.

The single car thing can often be explained, as has been said, by losing control of the car, or tiredness, or other factors I can't think of, not just suicide in disguise.

I think the categorisation of deaths does, as Sam64 says, do the real numbers a disservice. I don't intend to trivialise either the numbers or the effect of suicide, but I don't think we should assume suicide where there isn't actual grounds to indicate its the case.

Thats a different kind of disservice and the speculation doesn't bring the families any healing.

banie01 · 16-02-2011 12:49PM

The way suicide numbers are corrolated in Ireland also does our mental services a great disservice!
The last time I saw numbers released I think the numbers were at @500 suicides per year.
Now while I know my following statement is anectodal and in no way scientific, consider this.
Since 2002 I know of at least 30 people all under the age of 30 whom I would consider friends, acquaintances or colleagues that have taken their own lives.
Of this number 4 were recorded as suicides!

Now if this is the kind of data that our Government agencies plan their suicide prevention strategies and budget allocations around surely it is seriously flawed!

I live in Limerick City and those are just the deaths of people known to me that hand on heart I can attest to, factor in the deaths of people not known to me but about whom you'd here some rumour and gossip and even disregarding half of that total it still amounts to a huge number!
A trip to a cemetery in Limerick will reinforce this notion, not just about suicide but accidental deaths too!
The amount of young dead is truly frightening and little or no action seems to be taken around the 'preventable' deaths.
My own wife died at 26 from Illness but it is frightening to see the numbers of young people's headstones dotted around her grave and those numbers growing every week.

The stigma surrounding how these deaths are recorded needs to be addressed as without proper statistics any strategy to address the issues surrounding the causes(Be it suicide or accident) and prevention is practically worthless no matter how well intentioned.

SoulTrader · 16-02-2011 01:07PM

CDfm wrote: »

I worked in the UK for a major insurance company and ,in general, suicide in the first year was excluded from a policy.

I also think even that was not the case for mortgage policies.

A life assurance policy is a contract that pays out on the happening of an event, death. So if a person does not disclose an event to the insurer , for example, a heart condition that they have had treatment for and a few weeks later dies as a result, you would have a claim rejected.

With suicide, if a person was being treated for clinical depression and did not disclose it , that could result in a refusal to pay out. If it had been disclosed not so.

So as a rule , if a policy is properly written, it will pay out unless their is a specific clause excluding suicide.

Yep, I think in the US there's a 2 year exclusion period at the inception of a life policy where death by suicide is not paid out. Obviously just to protect the companies (and everyone else's premiums) from people rushing out to buy a policy days before they take their own lives.

CDfm · 16-02-2011 01:37PM

SoulTrader wrote: »

Yep, I think in the US there's a 2 year exclusion period at the inception of a life policy where death by suicide is not paid out. Obviously just to protect the companies (and everyone else's premiums) from people rushing out to buy a policy days before they take their own lives.

That is true & in the US there are federal laws.

An issue with Gerry Ryan's death,as an example, and the inquest will have concerned the factual information on any life assurance claims.

CDfm · 16-02-2011 01:40PM

banie01 wrote: »

The way suicide numbers are corrolated in Ireland also does our mental services a great disservice!
The last time I saw numbers released I think the numbers were at @500 suicides per year.
Now while I know my following statement is anectodal and in no way scientific, consider this.
Since 2002 I know of at least 30 people all under the age of 30 whom I would consider friends, acquaintances or colleagues that have taken their own lives.
Of this number 4 were recorded as suicides!.

I read somewhere that the numbers going to A&E for self harm is 60-70,000 per annum.

So yes -proper statistics on suicides and self harm do seem to be lacking.

amacachi · 16-02-2011 02:44PM

banie01 wrote: »

The way suicide numbers are corrolated in Ireland also does our mental services a great disservice!
The last time I saw numbers released I think the numbers were at @500 suicides per year.
Now while I know my following statement is anectodal and in no way scientific, consider this.
Since 2002 I know of at least 30 people all under the age of 30 whom I would consider friends, acquaintances or colleagues that have taken their own lives.
Of this number 4 were recorded as suicides!

Same thing here. I saw some stats and the number from Louth was laughably low. I knew of as many that happened in the space of 6 months just in this town and that was the amount that supposedly happened in a while year in the whole country.

CDfm · 18-02-2011 02:12AM

amacachi wrote: »

Same thing here. I saw some stats and the number from Louth was laughably low. I knew of as many that happened in the space of 6 months just in this town and that was the amount that supposedly happened in a while year in the whole country.

There is a cluster effect where you get one you get copycats.

On the edge of my group of friends and aquaintances last year we were touched by it.

The people were not young either 35 +.

A thing that strikes me is that I do not think the female figures are accurate based on my experience working with a voluntary organisation I would say they are around 40% of the male figure.

Not recording the figures correctly in some way also lets the authorities off the hook in giving the issue the serious priority it deserves

This is the New Zealand Governments reason as to why it is important

Suicide is an indicator of the mental health and social wellbeing of society and a
major cause of injury-related death in the population.

The NZ report is here

http://socialreport.msd.govt.nz/documents/2008/sr08-health.pdf

So by burying the information by definition you loose a very important tool to measure the well being of your population and also information on how to improve service delivery.

It is a kind of well being index.

Here are the European tables and they are only as accurate as the information supplied to them by government.

http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/tgm/refreshTableAction.do?tab=table&plugin=0&pcode=tps00122&language=en

Ma Ya Didn't tell me 70% of Accidental Deaths Were Men

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