Cultural, social, and medical equity could provide lasting solutions to Sri Lanka’s suicide epidemic

Following a decade of decline, Sri Lanka’s suicide rate – once amongst the highest in the world – is reported to be on the rise once again. It’s too early to tell whether this is a temporary blip or the beginnings of something more serious. But what is known is that the fall in the suicide rate was the result of ‘means restriction’ – chiefly sales restrictions placed on the most toxic pesticides – and not the result of falling levels of suicide attempts per se. In fact, the evidence suggests that the number of suicide attempts has actually increased in the same period, with suicidal behaviour remaining a leading cause of serious injury and death in youth and older persons in Sri Lanka.

Suicide in Sri Lanka: Understanding the Crisis

Suicide and deliberate self-harm represent significant health and social crises in Sri Lanka, placing extraordinary burdens on individuals, families, communities, and public services. By the final decade of the 20th century, the Sri Lankan suicide rate was one of the highest in the world; since then the rate has dropped, but rates of deliberate self-harm have significantly increased. The cause of the fall in the suicide rate was mainly the result of means restrictions – banning the most toxic pesticides used in self-harm – and improved health services implemented from the late 1990s, as well as an apparently spontaneous shift to medicinal drugs as a popular method of self-harm, which have a lower fatality rate. This briefing note aims to provide an overview of suicide and self-harm in Sri Lanka in relation to rates, demographic and social patterns, causes, and interventions.