Suicide and alcohol-related mortality in Hungary in the last two decades

Objectives: Suicide and alcohol-related mortality are often linked to each other in recent times, especially in the unfavourable mortality trends detected in Russia. Recent study has aimed to investigate suicide and alcohol-related mortality in Hungary between 1986 and 2005. This paper is based on the concept of social anomie and expects to find more favourable trends for both causes of death among those who were less exposed to unfavourable economic and social trends in the last two decades. Methods: In a cross-sectional design sex, age- and education-specific mortality rates were calculated. Results: We found falling suicide rates in all socio-demographic groups, except well-educated middle aged men. Suicide has fallen more among women than men, more among the elderly than the young and more among the more educated than the less educated. Alcohol-related mortality has risen by 5-10%, and its occurrence in different socio-demographic groups was found to be changing entirely proportionally. Conclusions: Developments in suicide mortality are generally in accordance with the hypothesis based on the concept of social anomie while those of alcohol-related mortality showed no relation with this concept.