It was up from 529 in 2015, and 510 in 2014.

Males were the most represented in the figures, with 412 committing suicide in 2016, compared to 141 females. Continue reading

Cr Henare O'Keefe made the comments during a council committee meeting to discuss an update of a suicide prevention plan written by the Hawke's Bay District Health Board. Read more

Chief Coroner Judge Deborah Marshall shared the new figures at a zero suicide prevention forum in Christchurch this week.

She said it was too early to draw conclusions on the 2017-18 figures, but said: "Clearly I'm concerned at the level and certainly it doesn't appear to be going down."

The increase prompted concerns around a recent "storm" of media coverage and political campaigns highlighting bereaved families' stories and failures in the mental health system.

Provisional figures released in August showed the number of people taking their own lives in New Zealand was on the rise, with 606 suspected suicides in the 2016-17 year, up from 579 the previous year and 564 the year before that.

Media reporting was a contentious issue, Marshall said.

"One of my greatest problems is the lack of consensus about media reporting from experts who I talk to.

"I have some people telling me that we need to talk about it more... and then I have an equally qualified person ... telling me you can't talk about it more and if you talk about it more the suicide rate will go up."

Marshall said she sent figures monthly to suicide prevention researcher Annette Beautrais, who was analysing the link between recent media coverage and suspected suicide numbers.

Beautrais is against media reporting of suicide due to fears of contagion.

Others say the law should not gag bereaved families and survivors who want to tell their stories.

Unlike other countries, New Zealand has criminal laws governing what can and cannot be said when it comes to suicide.

The rules were relaxed in July 2016, allowing the media to report on a death as a suspected suicide before the coroner has ruled on a case (which can take up to two years).

Methods of suicide cannot be reported as research shows that reporting specific details can lead to copycats. Continue reading

Sources

• Stuff article by Cecile Meier, a Christchurch Press reporter
• Image: Stuff

For counselling and support

• Need to talk? Free call or text 1737 any time
• Lifeline - 0800 543 354
• Samaritans - 0800 726 666
• Chinese Lifeline - 0800 888 880
  (for people who speak Mandarin or Cantonese)
• Youthline - 0800 376 633, free text 234 or email talk@youthline.co.nz
  (for young people, and their parents, whanau and friends)
• What's Up - 0800 942 8787
  (for 5-18 year olds; 1 pm to 11 pm)
• The Lowdown - visit the website, email team@thelowdown.co.nz or free text 5626 (emails and text messages will be responded to between 12 noon and 12 midnight)
• SPARX - an online self-help tool that teaches young people the key skills needed to help combat depression and anxiety.

Like many people of my generation, I read the newspapers and magazines I wish to read online. If it sits behind a paywall (The Times, for example) then I don't read it.

Actually, I tell a lie. There is one publication that we do subscribe to - First Things - a magazine from the United States which deals with religion and the public sphere.

It is also available online, but I only really read it in hard copy - there is still something about the tangible, crinkly, foldable, rollable magazine that cannot be replicated on a screen.

Anyway, after a two-month US summer hiatus, I was pleased to receive the September issue of the publication last week in my letter box.

I have a set order in which I read its contents, and the large articles I leave until last. So it was only a couple of days ago that I read the lead essay, entitled "Dying of Despair".

It was written by Aaron Kheriaty, an Associate Professor of psychiatry and director of the Medical Ethics Program at the University of California Irvine School of Medicine.

It details the disturbing trend in the USA of increased suicide and drug related deaths, such that, for the first time since the 1930s, overall life expectancy in the USA has begun to decline.

(We have detailed this in a number of posts over the last few months: here, here and here.)

Kheriaty notes that Angus Deaton, a Princeton economist who won the Nobel Prize for work on the intricacies of measuring human wellbeing, has called the increasing numbers of Americans dying from alcohol, drugs and suicide, "deaths of despair".

Linked to this, depression is now the most common serious mental or medical health disorder in the USA (and the leading cause of disability worldwide). Continue reading

• Marcus Roberts has just started a new job teaching contract law at Auckland University.
• See also: 606 pairs of shoes arrive at Parliament, as radio hosts open up about suicide.

For counselling and support

• Need to talk? Free call or text 1737 any time
• Lifeline - 0800 543 354
• Samaritans - 0800 726 666
• Chinese Lifeline - 0800 888 880
  (for people who speak Mandarin or Cantonese)
• Youthline - 0800 376 633, free text 234 or email talk@youthline.co.nz
  (for young people, and their parents, whanau and friends)
• What's Up - 0800 942 8787
  (for 5-18 year olds; 1 pm to 11 pm)
• The Lowdown - visit the website, email team@thelowdown.co.nz or free text 5626 (emails and text messages will be responded to between 12 noon and 12 midnight)
• SPARX - an online self-help tool that teaches young people the key skills needed to help combat depression and anxiety.