Gender differences in suicide rates of municipalities in South Korea: A latent profile analysis by life cycles

Background: South Korea showed the highest suicide rate among the countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Aims: This study aimed to discern the profiles of municipalities according to their suicide rates across the life cycle and gender, and then to identify the unique characteristics of each latent group. Method: This study applied a latent profile modeling to categorize the regions by life cycle suicide rates of their residents. The latent profile analysis (LPA) yielded four latent groups for males and three groups for females. This study explored the unique characteristics of 250 municipalities by latent groups with these groups. Results: The results suggested significant gender differences in the characteristics of localities. For the high adolescent suicide rates groups, there was a higher proportion of urban areas among males while there was a higher proportion of rural regions among females. Limitations: This study analyzed secondary data of municipalities, so the characteristics of each profile of suicide rate could only be identified within this existing data. Conclusions: This paper is one of the first studies to apply the LPA to different latent profiles by life cycle suicide rates.