A non-profit that figured out how to massively cut suicide rates in Sri Lanka
Ok I unfortunately don&#x27;t have the time to listen to the whole episode, but whatever hard data is included in the text of the article doesn&#x27;t look to fit the title.<p><i>&gt; the suicide rate in Sri Lanka has dropped significantly. So, from 57 deaths per 100,000 population in ’95, it has dropped now to 17. This is a 70% reduction. So, it’s a very significant success, in fact the greatest decrease in suicide rate ever seen.</i><p>So the first thing we see is that 70% reduction amounts to the suicide rate dropping from 0.057% to 0.017%. That would still put Sri Lanka at or near the top (=most suicidal) according to Wikipedia [1], so I guess it&#x27;s pretty significant; it&#x27;s just that I always view relative percentages with suspicion (&quot;we reduced the death rate by INFINITY percent!&quot; &quot;oh yeah you saved one life&quot;).<p>Second, if the rate of suicide decreased by 70% in 20 years, that doesn&#x27;t mean that it can be 100% percent attributed to lack of pesticides (in fact, I cannot think of <i>any</i> scenario where that could be true). 20 years is a lot of time, especially in Asia, so I don&#x27;t know, maybe it was just the improvement of the quality of life, or (mental) health-care? <i>Edit:</i> I hope the recording sheds more light on <i>why</i> they attribute <i>any</i> part of the drop to lack of pesticides...<p>Anyways, it&#x27;s discouraging, and therefore I judge the title as &quot;click-bait-y&quot;.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;List_of_countries_by_suicide_r...</a>