Alcohol and suicide in the Nenets Autonomous Okrug and Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia

Background: High suicide rates in the Russian North are coupled with high alcohol consumption in the described populations. Objective: To investigate the potential role of alcohol consumption on suicides in the Nenets Autonomous Okrug (NAO) in 2002–2012 and to compare this information with correspon...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International Journal of Circumpolar Health
Main Authors: Yury A. Sumarokov, Tormod Brenn, Alexander V. Kudryavtsev, Oleg Sidorenkov, Odd Nilssen
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Taylor & Francis Group 2016
Subjects:
suicide
ethnicity
alcohol
indigenous
non-indigenous
distal risk factors
proximal risk factors
Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine
RC955-962
Arctic
Arkhangelsk
Circumpolar Health
International Journal of Circumpolar Health
nenets
Nenets Autonomous Okrug
Russian North
Arkhangelsk Oblast
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.3402/ijch.v75.30965
https://doaj.org/article/e3503406bc2846edba8b4ec93e1dd6ea
Description
Summary:Background: High suicide rates in the Russian North are coupled with high alcohol consumption in the described populations. Objective: To investigate the potential role of alcohol consumption on suicides in the Nenets Autonomous Okrug (NAO) in 2002–2012 and to compare this information with corresponding data from the neighboring Arkhangelsk Oblast (AO). Design: Retrospective population-based mortality study. Methods: Data from autopsy reports were used to identify 252 cases of suicide in the NAO and 1,198 cases in the AO in the period 2002–2012. Postmortem blood alcohol content (BAC) was available for 228 cases in the NAO and 1,185 cases in the AO. BAC as well as other selected variables were compared between the NAO and the AO among women and men, different age groups, ethnic groups, and selected variables of suicide. Results: Alcohol was present in the blood of 74.1% of male and 82.9% of female suicide cases in the NAO, which was significantly higher than the proportions found in the AO (59.3% of male and 46.6% female cases). BAC<1.0‰ and between 2.0 and 3.0‰ were more frequently found among suicide cases in the NAO than those in the AO. Conclusions: Our findings specify that alcohol drinking may be an essential risk factor for suicide in the NAO, and that this factor may be of greater importance in the indigenous population of the NAO than among Russians in the AO.

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