Suicide: international

International mortality rates from suicide (not including undetermined intent) are published annually by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in their Health at a Glance report. This allows comparisons between the UK and other OECD countries, and shows that the UK rate is lower than the OECD average.

International mortality rates from suicide (not including undetermined intent) are also included in the Scotland and European Health for all Database. This allows comparisons between Scotland, the UK and other European countries. The Scotland rate has been lower than the EU average from the 1980s up to 1997, then around the EU average in recent years.

Note that when analysing suicide data different organisations use different conventions and definitions when calculating suicide rates. In particular, some analyses do not combine deaths by intentional self-harm with deaths of undetermined intent as is done in the statistics presented on these data pages. This distinction is particularly important when comparing data from different countries as differing legal arrangements and social/religious attitudes may lead to different proportions of likely suicides being assigned to these two groups.