What calls for service tell us about suicide: A 7-year spatio-temporal analysis of neighborhood correlates of suicide-related calls.

Previous research has shown that neighborhood-level variables such as social deprivation, social
fragmentation or rurality are related to suicide risk, but most of these studies have been conducted
in the U.S. or northern European countries. The aim of this study was to analyze the spatio-temporal
distribution of suicide in a southern European city (Valencia, Spain), and determine whether this
distribution was related to a set of neighborhood-level characteristics. We used suicide-related calls
for service as an indicator of suicide cases (n=6,537), and analyzed the relationship of the outcome
variable with several neighborhood-level variables: economic status, education level, population
density, residential instability, one-person households, immigrant concentration, and population
aging. A Bayesian autoregressive model was used to study the spatio-temporal distribution at the
census block group level for a 7-year period (2010–2016). Results showed that neighborhoods with
lower levels of education and population density, and higher levels of residential instability, one-person
households, and an aging population had higher levels of suicide-related calls for service. Immigrant
concentration and economic status did not make a relevant contribution to the model. These results
could help to develop better-targeted community-level suicide prevention strategies.