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. 2006 Jan;50(3):139-43.
doi: 10.1007/s00484-005-0002-y. Epub 2005 Oct 19.

Inter-annual rainfall variations and suicide in New South Wales, Australia, 1964-2001

Neville Nicholls  1 , Colin D Butler, Ivan Hanigan
Affiliations

Inter-annual rainfall variations and suicide in New South Wales, Australia, 1964-2001

Neville Nicholls et al. Int J Biometeorol. 2006 Jan.

Abstract

The suicide rate in New South Wales is shown to be related to annual precipitation, supporting a widespread and long-held assumption that drought in Australia increases the likelihood of suicide. The relationship, although statistically significant, is not especially strong and is confounded by strong, long-term variations in the suicide rate not related to precipitation variations. A decrease in precipitation of about 300 mm would lead to an increase in the suicide rate of approximately 8% of the long-term mean suicide rate.

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