Update of previous post on pandemic mental disorders, particularly suicide: higher in nonwhites, unchanged in whites.
Previous early-pandemic warnings of increased suicide rates have not been borne out in an English, mostly white population. In nonwhite populations, however, there has been an apparent increase in suicide rates. A Japanese study, published in JAMANetwork Open, found an increase in suicides among young men and young- and middle-aged women during the fall of 2020.
Americans, black and brown, have had an increased suicide rate, as shown in a study in Maryland where rates among black people doubled..
There have been robust increases in distress, manifested in an increased need for psychiatric services and a sort of existential dread that we are in a horror movie subjected to never-ending peril of death, and even vaccination won’t save us.
(photo: Boris the dog on Muscat Avenue facing East– personal photo collection)
Conrad Theodore Seitz 