Examining variations in immigrants’ lower risk of suicide-related behaviours

Using data from the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) and the Canadian Census Health and Environment Cohort (CanCHEC), this article provides an understanding of suicide-related behaviours, namely suicide ideation and completed suicides, among immigrants. Overall, immigrants aged 15 years and older were less likely than their Canadian-born counterparts to report having had suicidal thoughts and were also less likely to die by suicide. Based on data from the CCHS, 1.5% of immigrants and 3% of the Canadian-born population reported having had suicidal thoughts in the past year. For both populations, having an anxiety or mood disorder was the strongest risk factor for suicide ideation. Youth (aged 15 to 24 years) reported having had the highest proportion of suicidal thoughts in the last year among both Immigrants and Canadian-born persons. The prevalence of suicide mortality was also lower among immigrants. After adjusting for differences in the age-structure of the immigrant and Canadian-born populations, the suicide rate was 7 per 100,000 person-years for immigrants, twice as low as the rate for the Canadian-born population at 14 per 100,000 person-years. Among immigrants, those born in Western Europe had the highest suicide mortality rate. While young, working aged and older immigrants were as likely to die by suicide, working-aged Canadian-born people were most likely to die by suicide. For immigrants and the Canadian-born population, males had a suicide mortality rate three times higher than that of females. Socioeconomic factors such as income and household level education did not have a consistent role in suicide-related behaviors among immigrants, while both factors had a unique impact on suicide ideation and suicide mortality among the Canadian-born population.