Suicide and Undetermined Violent Deaths in Malaysia, 1966-1990: Evidence for the Misclassification of Suicide Statistics

This study of the reported rates of suicide in West Malaysia between 1966 & 1990 shows that the mean crude suicide rate between 1966 & 1974 was 6.1 per 100,000, but had dropped drastically between 1975 & 1990, to a mean of 1.6 per 100,000. Three lines of evidence are presented to show that this reduction in the suicide rate is due to a systematic misclassification of medically certified suicides as deaths due to undetermined violent deaths. After showing this, the authors present the corrected rates. (13 refs)