Relatively few countries credibly count their dead (Mathers, Fat, Inoue, Rao, & Lopez, 2005). Thus, differential sophistication as well as sociopolitical and economic support of healthcare and systems to investigate deaths inevitably leave a large gulf between richer and poorer countries in accurately registering manner and cause of death. And when suicide is in question, the variable stigma of self harm
combined with limited resources for conducting forensic death investigations likely produce large registration gaps among richer nations as well.