Pesticide poisoning is a standard methodology of suicide in lots of low- to middle-income international locations. Substituting extremely poisonous pesticides for much less deadly ones can save lives.
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This text accommodates an in-depth dialogue of suicide deaths, together with motivations and strategies, which will not be appropriate or useful for people who find themselves fighting critical psychological well being points.
In case you are coping with suicidal ideas, you’ll be able to obtain instant assist by visiting assets corresponding to findahelpline.com.
Stopping suicides can look like a way more tough drawback than a lot of these we cowl on Our World in Knowledge. The variety of individuals dying from suicide every year has barely modified in many years.1 Psychological well being issues, a key threat issue for suicide, are advanced and don’t have a single or easy repair. You’d be forgiven for considering that decreasing suicide deaths could be sluggish, if it had been attainable in any respect.
Pesticides are utilized in 14% to twenty% of suicide deaths globally — 100,000 to 150,000 deaths every year
Nonetheless, many international locations have proven us that this assumption is fake. There’s so much we will do to forestall suicides. Sri Lanka is without doubt one of the most dramatic examples of this.
On the flip of the millennium, Sri Lanka had the second-highest suicide charge on the planet (after Greenland). However take a look at the chart under: charges have fallen by nearly two-thirds since then. Regardless of it having a rising inhabitants, the quantity of Sri Lankans dying from suicide has greater than halved, saving hundreds of lives yearly.2
The largest driver of this decline is one thing that the majority of us not often take into consideration: a discount in self-poisonings from pesticides. This can be a frequent methodology utilized in many low- to middle-income international locations, the place most suicides happen. The figures on this, like a variety of knowledge on suicides globally, are unsure. Most of the research I’ll talk about on this article depend on knowledge from police data, which are usually an undercount as a result of stigma in reporting.3 However to provide some sense of the magnitude of the issue: a number of research estimate that insecticides are utilized in 14% to twenty% of suicide deaths globally.4 That may imply 100,000 to 150,000 deaths every year.5
How did Sri Lanka cut back these deaths over the past 30 years? Many research counsel that it was as a result of the nation banned among the most poisonous pesticides, whereas permitting them to be substituted for much less dangerous ones.6
On this article, I take a look at the proof and arguments for banning extremely poisonous pesticides to scale back suicide deaths, together with among the considerations that these bans may elevate.
Let’s first take a look at the case research of Sri Lanka. Its suicide charges have fallen dramatically over the past 25 years. However why?
To reply this query, it’s useful to take a look at the change in suicide strategies over this era. A research by Duleeka Knipe and colleagues studied developments in suicide deaths in Sri Lanka from 1975 by means of to 2012.7 To get the breakdown by methodology and demographics, it relied on recorded knowledge from the Division of Police’s Division of Statistics. Because of the stigma that’s usually connected to suicide deaths — and the challenges of amassing nationwide knowledge, particularly in low-income international locations within the Nineteen Eighties or Nineteen Nineties — it could be cheap to count on that these deaths are a conservative estimate.
Within the chart, you’ll be able to see the suicide charge throughout totally different strategies. What’s instantly clear is how dominant self-poisonings (principally from pesticides) have been, but in addition the truth that that is the place many of the decline in complete suicide charges has come from. As lately because the late Nineteen Nineties, 40 individuals per 100,000 had been dying from self-poisonings every year. This has fallen by greater than two-thirds to simply over 10.
Once more, some readers may be stunned that insecticides are the main methodology of suicide. This isn’t a giant difficulty in high-income international locations, however it’s in low- to middle-income international locations. Pesticides have weaker laws, that means most of the people should buy them like some other good. They’re usually utilized in small-scale farming and saved on-site, which is continuously the household’s house. Meaning they’re simply accessible to many individuals.
What then induced this decline in pesticide poisoning deaths?
Many level to Sri Lanka’s ban on extremely hazardous pesticides (HHPs) as the important thing driver. Pesticides are sometimes categorized by the WHO and the UN’s Meals and Agriculture Group based mostly on their hazards to human well being and the surroundings. HHPs charge extremely on this classification and are extra deadly than most different pesticides if ingested.
Sri Lanka didn’t ban all HHPs in a single swoop. It regularly prohibited a spread of HHPs over a number of many years. Within the chart under, I’ve overlaid the dates of those bans onto the general suicide charge pattern. No single pesticide phase-out dropped charges by two-thirds alone. As an alternative, researchers attribute totally different substances to totally different components of the general pattern.
The ban on parathion and methyl parathion within the Nineteen Eighties is attributed to stopping a continued improve in suicide charges, which had been climbing for many years. The 1995 ban on WHO Class I toxicity pesticides led to the primary sustained downturn. There was one other step-change in 1998 as a result of ban on endosulfan, and additional bans on paraquat continued this decline into the late 2010s.
Researchers may also use extra advanced analyses to grasp what position these bans had on the decline in suicide charges. These research have a tendency to seek out that they had been a key driver.8
To be clear: this doesn’t imply they had been the solely motive for the discount, however in a world with out these bans, the autumn in suicides could be a lot much less steep, and plenty of extra individuals could be dying from pesticide poisonings yearly.
Sri Lanka shouldn’t be the one nation to have skilled a decline in suicides from self-poisonings. Particularly, this has been the case throughout a number of Asian international locations. The chart reveals the change in complete suicide charges throughout a choice of international locations in South and East Asia. These international locations have banned at the very least some HHPs over this era (some additionally banned chosen ones earlier than 2000). As you’ll be able to see, charges have fallen to various levels over the previous few many years.
Once more, the ban of HHPs is unlikely to be the solely driver of this decline, however a couple of research counsel it has been necessary.9 Even in international locations the place charges had stopped rising or had been already falling, introducing a ban on specific HHPs usually modified the charge of the decline.
It’s necessary to notice that in some international locations, these bans did not result in a conclusive discount in suicides. Nepal’s suicide charge, for instance, has not modified, and research counsel that the ingestion of banned pesticides remains to be one of many main strategies used.10 This implies that these unlawful substances are nonetheless getting into and getting used within the nation.
So, the success of those bans in driving down suicide charges depended so much on the context: how frequent self-poisonings already had been; what pesticides had been banned, and whether or not different extremely poisonous pesticides had been nonetheless obtainable; how stringently the bans had been enforced; and the way different threat elements for suicide had been altering. Nonetheless, throughout a number of international locations, these bans seem to have had some optimistic impression on saving lives.
After I was trying on the preliminary analysis on this, I had some doubts that these bans may result in a decline in complete suicide charges.
First, Sri Lanka didn’t ban pesticides utterly. It banned sure HHPs, which may very well be substituted for different chemical pesticides. If somebody actually wished to die by suicide, wouldn’t they simply devour the brand new pesticide anyway?
The reply is sure: many individuals did drink substituted pesticides. However, consuming these decrease toxicity alternate options was a lot much less lethal. A research from Nepal discovered that aluminum phosphide (a pesticide used earlier than the ban) had a fatality charge of round 50%.11 That meant that half of these ingesting it could die. The pesticides used after the ban had a fatality charge of seven%. That’s seven occasions decrease.
A number of the banned HHPs had even larger fatality charges than this, as much as 80%. So even when the full quantity of people that consumed pesticides didn’t change in any respect, we’d nonetheless count on the loss of life charge to fall as a result of they had been a lot much less more likely to die because of this.
My second doubt was whether or not individuals merely switched from self-poisoning to a different methodology. If somebody had been decided to die, we would count on them to hunt out one other means within the absence of poisonous pesticides. For some individuals, this was the case. Earlier, we noticed that in Sri Lanka, whereas suicide charges from self-poisonings had fallen so much, there was a rise in suicide from hanging.12 However this improve was a lot smaller than the decline from pesticides, so it wasn’t the case that the majority, and even many, individuals made this swap. The decline in pesticide poisonings greater than offset the rise in hangings, and so fewer individuals nonetheless died from suicide general. This was additionally true in Bangladesh.
The dimensions of this substitution impact can fluctuate by nation. Research from India counsel a big change within the strategies used. After the pesticide endosulfan was banned nationwide in 2011, there was a robust decline in deaths from self-poisoning. However, over that very same interval, there was additionally a robust improve in suicides by hanging. By 2014, pesticide loss of life charges had been 48% decrease than anticipated underneath a state of affairs with out a ban.13 However the complete suicide charge was solely 10% decrease. That’s as a result of the rise in hanging had offset a considerable fraction of the lives “saved” from self-poisoning. This was significantly true for males, the place complete charges didn’t decline a lot. In girls, there seemed to be a a lot smaller substitution impact.
My closing doubt was whether or not eradicating HHPs would truly cut back suicide deaths, or just delay them. If somebody tried suicide with a much less poisonous pesticide or a much less deadly methodology, and didn’t die, wouldn’t they simply strive once more? Broader analysis on suicide means that for most individuals, the reply is not any.
An evaluation combining the outcomes of 177 research over 30 years discovered that 1.6% of people that had tried suicide tried once more inside one 12 months, and three.6% had tried once more inside 5 years.14 This implies that greater than 96% of people that try suicide and survive don’t accomplish that once more within the subsequent 5 years. If most individuals don’t re-attempt suicide, then ensuring that the strategy used within the first try has a low fatality threat may save many lives. On this case, which means eradicating entry to extremely poisonous pesticides.
This results in an necessary level underpinning among the justification for these bans. Folks try suicide for a wide range of causes. Some have been fighting psychological well being issues and suicidal ideation for a very long time. A considerable fraction, although, does in order an impulsive act. Notably during times of acute disaster, some individuals try self-harm rapidly as a method to alleviate the instant emotional stress, with out essentially desirous to die. The try shouldn’t be premeditated, and the time between the thought and the act could be extremely brief.15
For somebody residing in rural Sri Lanka, this may imply reaching for a extremely poisonous pesticide that’s simply accessible at house. Interviews with Sri Lankans who survived self-poisoning makes an attempt instructed that 85% selected their methodology based mostly on accessibility: it was there and obtainable in these moments of misery.16
If a lot of suicide makes an attempt are the results of transient, impulsive acts, then it could make sense that eradicating probably the most deadly strategies would make a distinction. Folks would have a better likelihood of survival and will get the assistance and assist wanted to forestall future makes an attempt.
To this point, we’ve mentioned pesticide use as an issue: they’re poisonous and value lives when consumed. Nonetheless, when used successfully, pesticides may also convey necessary advantages within the type of meals safety, agricultural productiveness, and farmer incomes.
Farmers can see huge quantities of their harvest worn out in the event that they lack methods to handle pests and illness. For a lot of, that doesn’t simply imply much less meals; it additionally means a giant chunk of the 12 months’s revenue is gone.
I’ve written beforehand about the advantages of agricultural applied sciences corresponding to fertilizers, higher seeds, pesticides, and irrigation for meals manufacturing, poverty alleviation, and sparing pure habitat. These applied sciences have performed an enormous position within the dramatic rise in crop yields seen in international locations like Sri Lanka, India, China, and Bangladesh. See the chart under.
A sound concern, then, is that taking these pesticides away would scale back crop yields and meals manufacturing. That may not solely be unhealthy for meals safety, vitamin, and incomes, however presumably for suicide charges, too. If a big share of suicides is the results of impulsive acts as a result of acute stress, there’s a cheap argument that the repeated stress of crop failures, lack of revenue, and rural poverty may improve charges of suicide makes an attempt.
After reviewing the scientific literature and knowledge, I don’t assume these bans have had vital detrimental impacts on productiveness. What’s essential is that there was no complete ban on all pesticides; it was geared toward extremely poisonous ones, for which there have been usually much less poisonous substitutes or different methods to scale back pests.
A few of these replacements had been direct chemical substitutes, which may carry out simply as nicely. In different circumstances, adjustments to farming practices have additionally been essential, corresponding to incorporating built-in pest administration (which entails adjustments in crop rotations and resistant crop varieties). There may be little proof that, on mixture, these bans have hindered crop yields. However that doesn’t imply the substitution is all the time straightforward: in some circumstances, the substitute pesticide is costlier; in others, it requires coaching and diversifications from farmers to make use of pesticides extra effectively.
Sri Lanka supplies a great case research of each interventions; whereas they launched a sequence of bans on particular HHPs over a number of many years, in 2021, the federal government additionally launched an instantaneous ban on all fertilizer and pesticide imports.17 It gave a number of causes for the ban. Sri Lanka was dealing with a extreme overseas foreign money scarcity and wished to scale back the nation’s spending on chemical imports. It additionally tried positioning itself as the primary “natural nation” to deal with environmental air pollution and well being considerations about overusing these agricultural inputs. These well being considerations weren’t particularly associated to suicides from pesticides.
Let’s take a look at Sri Lanka’s rice yields because the Sixties. That is proven within the chart under. I’ve added strains flagging the dates of specific pesticide bans and the whole ban in 2021. Though there’s all the time year-to-year variability in yields as a result of elements corresponding to climate, there was a reasonably gradual improve in yields, significantly because the Seventies. There have been no sudden drops in yields following any of the precise HHP bans. There was, nonetheless, an enormous drop in yields over the 2021–2022 season, following the whole prohibition of fertilizer and pesticide imports (which made up many of the nation’s provide).
This knowledge matches the experiences of Sri Lankan farmers, a lot of whom skilled massive declines in yields — generally greater than 50% — as they had been successfully compelled to go natural in a single day, with out time to transition and develop new crop administration methods. The ban was so damaging and acquired a lot backlash that the federal government reversed its choice in November 2021, simply seven months after it was introduced.
There may be additionally proof that banning much less poisonous pesticides doesn’t assist to scale back suicides from self-poisoning; subsequently, blanket bans wouldn’t assist to avoid wasting lives from suicide and would harm agricultural productiveness within the course of.18
Because the research places it: “These findings assist the restriction of acutely poisonous pesticides in resource-poor international locations to assist cut back hospitalization for and deaths from deliberate self-poisonings and warning towards arbitrary bans of much less poisonous pesticides whereas extra poisonous pesticides stay obtainable.”
Research in different international locations have discovered related outcomes. When poisonous pesticides had been banned in Bangladesh, pesticide deaths went down, however there was no clear impression on crop yields or meals manufacturing.19
The identical is true for India, which has had a gentle, pretty linear yield improve for over 50 years.
To be clear: banning poisonous pesticides is not any substitute for addressing among the underlying circumstances that drive individuals in the direction of suicide, nor does it negate the necessity for investments in assist for psychological well being. These bans should not going to cease self-poisonings utterly. Regardless of an enormous discount in suicide charges in Sri Lanka, self-poisoning remains to be the main methodology used.
A ban on extremely hazardous pesticides in simply 14 international locations may save 28,000 lives every year and would value solely $30 million
However the analysis is convincing that banning selective HHPs has performed a task in decreasing the fatality of suicide makes an attempt, saving hundreds of lives every year within the course of.
Some research — though only a few have modeled this — additionally counsel that it’s a comparatively cost-effective intervention. This implies it may save many lives, even in resource-constrained international locations that don’t have massive budgets to spend (which regularly signifies that psychological well being and suicide don’t get consideration in any respect).
In a research printed in The Lancet, researchers estimate {that a} ban on HPPs in simply 14 international locations may save 28,000 lives every year from suicide, and would value simply $30 million in complete.20 The intervention seems to be so low-cost as a result of little or no sustained “supply” is concerned: it’s not a medical remedy that suggests drug manufacturing, supply, and healthcare workers. Nor does it contain a psychological intervention, delivered by educated personnel or a web based useful resource. The principle prices had been the upfront effort of enacting nationwide laws and a few ongoing assets for implementing these bans. Price-effectiveness, as we would count on, was far larger in international locations the place self-poisoning from pesticides was a number one methodology of suicide; this implies specializing in these high-impact international locations would save extra lives.
In a separate evaluation, the charity evaluator GiveWell instructed that one of many main analysis organizations engaged on this drawback — The Centre for Pesticide Suicide Prevention — was doubtlessly amongst a few of its most cost-effective interventions. Nonetheless, it did stress that these analyses needed to depend on a spread of assumptions that make the conclusions much less sure than the proof base for different programmes.
Once more, we ought to be clear that these interventions are solely a part of the answer. They aren’t a silver bullet to a assorted and sophisticated drawback. However the proof means that when fastidiously applied, they’ve already saved many lives from suicide, and if applied extra broadly, may doubtlessly save tens of hundreds extra, yearly.
Acknowledgments
Many due to Edouard Mathieu, Saloni Dattani, and Simon van Teutem for suggestions and strategies on this text.
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Hannah Ritchie (2025) - “Bans on extremely poisonous pesticides may very well be a easy method to save lives from suicide” Revealed on-line at OurWorldinData.org. Retrieved from: 'https://ourworldindata.org/pesticide-bans-suicide-prevention' [Online Resource]BibTeX quotation
@article{owid-pesticide-bans-suicide-prevention,
writer = {Hannah Ritchie},
title = {Bans on extremely poisonous pesticides may very well be a easy method to save lives from suicide},
journal = {Our World in Knowledge},
12 months = {2025},
observe = {https://ourworldindata.org/pesticide-bans-suicide-prevention}
}
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