Coventry Telegraph

STUDENT SUICIDE RATES FALL

- By AIDAN MCNAMEE

However, men and mature students still remain disproport­ionately vulnerable

STUDENT suicides have fallen for a second year in a row to their lowest level in 12 years. Analysis by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) recorded 64 suicides of higher education students across England and Wales, or 3.0 per 100,000 students, during the 2019/20 academic year, which ran to July 2020.

That's compared to an estimated 69 deaths recorded in 2018/19, and was the lowest number since an estimated 60 deaths in the 2008/09 academic year.

Julia Stanboroug­h, Health Analysis and Life Events statistici­an at the ONS, said: “[This] data show that the suicide rate among higher education students have decreased over the last four years. However, low numbers of suicides per year make it difficult to identify significan­t difference­s.”

Covid delays to death reporting and missing data may also mask the true extent of the issue.

The ONS linked individual student records from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) with informatio­n on death certificat­es to estimate the figures.

Deaths caused by suicide are generally registered later, and as such the lower number of suicides in 2019/20 could be genuine or explained by delays to coroner inquests because of the impact of the pandemic.

Male students made up 59% of suicides recorded in 2019/20, despite only being 43% of the student population. Between 2016/17 and 2019/20, men were more than twice as likely to take their own lives as female students, at a rate of 5.6 per 100,000 students to 2.5 per 100,000.

Male part-time students were more vulnerable in 2019/20, being 2.5 times more likely to die by suicide than their full-time counterpar­ts (8.3 deaths per 100,000 compared to 3.2). First year male students are also at a higher risk, with a suicide rate of 7.8 deaths per 100,000 students compared to 4.3 per 100,000 for male students in other years.

This reflects trends in the general population, which sees men struggle to find treatment for mental health issues.

According to the Mental Health Foundation, three times as many men as women die by suicide, and men comprise only 36% of referrals to NHS talking therapies. The charity said men can be reluctant to seek treatment due to stereotype­s of being “strong, dominant and in control”.

Mature students are also at higher risk of suicide, with the average age of those dying shifting from 22 over most of the period to 27 in 2019/20.

There were an estimated 11 suicides among postgradua­te women during the 2019/20 academic year, making up half of all deaths among the group since 2016.

Despite the severity of student suicide rates, they are still far below that of the general population. The ONS recorded a suicide rate of 10.0 per 100,000 people in 2020, more than three times the rate of student suicides.

A spokespers­on for the National Union of Students (NUS) said: “These statistics are incredibly worrying, but unsurprisi­ng. We know that the majority of students are burdened with stress and anxiety, and the student mental health problem has accelerate­d in recent years due to the pandemic and now the cost of living crisis. Both universiti­es and Government must do more to support vulnerable students.

"Students have been campaignin­g for university welfare services to improve for many years now, and although we’ve seen additional funding for institutio­ns as a result of our efforts, there is still so much progress to be made."

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