WASHINGTON, United States (CMC) — The Pan-American Health Organisation (PAHO) says a new study has found that restricting access to pesticides and firearms could prevent over 120,000 suicide deaths in the Americas including the Caribbean over a decade.

Earlier this week, PAHO said a recent study published in The Lancet Regional Health – Americas, revealed that implementing policies to restrict access to highly hazardous pesticides and firearms could avert such deaths.

The research, conducted in collaboration with experts from PAHO and the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Canada, suggested that, if restrictions on access to firearms or pesticides were applied in countries where they account for 40 per cent or more of suicides, the mortality rate could be reduced by over 20 per cent among males and 11 per cent among females by 2030.

PAHO said annually, nearly 100,000 lives are lost to suicide in the Americas and, unlike other World Health Organisation (WHO) regions, the suicide mortality rate has increased in recent years.

“This means restriction is an effective evidence-based intervention in suicide prevention, and a key strategy recommended by the WHO under its ‘LIVE LIFE’ approach to reduce suicide mortality,” PAHO said.

Anselm Hennis, director of the Department of Noncommunicable Diseases and Mental Health at PAHO and co-author of the study said, “Suicide is preventable, and each life lost is devastating.”

“This study shows that effective policies that limit access to two of the most common methods for suicide can have an impact on reducing mortality in the region,” he added.

Using data modelled from 2020 to 2030, the study estimates important impact in several countries.

For instance, the study said in El Salvador, Guyana, Nicaragua and Suriname, where ingestion of highly hazardous pesticides led to 40 per cent or more of suicides in each country in 2019, proactive restriction measures could substantially reduce suicide rates by 2030.

Similarly, in the United States, where firearms accounted for over 40 per cent of suicide deaths in the same year, implementing targeted restrictions is predicted to lead to a marked decline in suicide rates over the next decade, the study found.

It said that the effective implementation of measures for restricting access to pesticides and firearms could prevent the loss of over 123,000 lives to suicide throughout the region of the Americas.

The study found the most notable reductions would be observed in the non-Latin Caribbean subregion where the suicide mortality rate could be reduced by up to 31 per cent among males and 34 per cent among females if a specific restriction on highly hazardous pesticides were to be applied in three key countries — Guyana, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago in 2020.

“Implementing restriction measures is most effective when the methods are prevalent and account for a significant proportion of suicide deaths,” said Dr Renato Oliveira e Souza, chief of the PAHO Mental Health and Substance Use Unit, and co-author of the study. “However, it is also crucial to consider the sociocultural context when implementing means restriction policies.”

The researchers behind the study are calling for “multisectoral collaboration” to implement these evidence-based interventions to meet the WHO target of reducing the suicide mortality rate by one-third by 2030.