Spatial statistical analysis of regional disparities in suicide among policy units in Japan: Using the Bayesian hierarchical model.

ABSTRACT: Suicide prevention is a crucial policy issue in Japan to be addressed nationally. Nevertheless, if there are regional differences in suicide, even in adjacent sub-regions, measures may need to be taken at the sub-regional level. Previous studies have not compared regional differences in suicide based on the size of policy units, such as prefectures, secondary medical areas, and municipalities. This study used the number of suicides from open data for 10 years from 2009 to 2018 to obtain shrinkage estimates of the standardized mortality ratio (SMR) using the Bayesian hierarchical model. We visualized and compared the regional disparities in suicide for each policy unit. For each gender and policy unit, adjacent regions had similar clusters of SMRs and positive spatial autocorrelation of glo

SUBMITTER: Koda M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10021712 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature