A Markov chain model for studying suicide dynamics: an illustration of the Rose theorem

BMC Public Health

Yi Zhang⁴  Ichiro Kawachi¹  Bing Kwan So³  Paul Siu Fai Yip² 

[1] Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Ave., 7th floor, Boston, MA 02115, USA;The Hong Kong Jockey Club Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong;Chern Institute of Mathematics, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, China;Department of Social Work and Social Administration, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong

关键词: Rose theorem;    Suicide;    Markov chain model;    An illness and death model;   

Others  :  1129184
DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2458-14-625

 received in 2013-11-23, accepted in 2014-06-12,  发布年份 2014

【 摘 要 】

Background

High-risk strategies would only have a modest effect on suicide prevention within a population. It is best to incorporate both high-risk and population-based strategies to prevent suicide. This study aims to compare the effectiveness of suicide prevention between high-risk and population-based strategies.

Methods

A Markov chain illness and death model is proposed to determine suicide dynamic in a population and examine its effectiveness for reducing the number of suicides by modifying certain parameters of the model. Assuming a population with replacement, the suicide risk of the population was estimated by determining the final state of the Markov model.

Results

The model shows that targeting the whole population for suicide prevention is more effective than reducing risk in the high-risk tail of the distribution of psychological distress (i.e. the mentally ill).

Conclusions

The results of this model reinforce the essence of the Rose theorem that lowering the suicidal risk in the population at large may be more effective than reducing the high risk in a small population.

【 授权许可】

   
2014 Yip et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

【 图 表 】

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