PhD student Mariko Kanamori Presents at the Third Workshop for the 2020 Kyoto Kokoro Initiative

The third workshop of the 2020 Kyoto Kokoro Initiative, which was originally postponed and rescheduled, was held online on January 13th, 2021. PhD student Mariko Kanamori (Department of Health and Social Behavior, the University of Tokyo) presented a paper entitled “From Cow Health to Human Health: Exploring Social Determinants of Suicide in Rural Areas.” Eighteen people participated through a web meeting on Zoom.

In the presentation, two studies on suicide rates in rural areas were reported from the standpoint that human, animal and ecosystem health are interrelated. In the first report, a survey on the suicide rate by type of agriculture in agricultural areas in Japan showed that the suicide rate was higher in areas with high dairy and livestock output than in areas with low output.

The second report presented the results of a study comparing urban and rural suicide rates in Sweden. It was pointed out that especially in rural areas, the suicide rate of male immigrants tends to be high. Kanamori showed various possibilities of social determinants behind such high suicide rates in rural areas, and presented future research prospects.

In the following discussion, researchers from various standpoints including sociology and psychology pointed out the difficulty of identifying the cause of suicide. At the same time, there was active discussion on the significance of investigating social trends using big data rather than personal factors.

2021/03/03