It is recognized that socioeconomic status (SES) has a significant impact on health and wellbeing; however, the effect of SES on suicide is contested. This study explored the effect of SES in suicide deaths and decomposed inequality into its determinants to calculate relative contributions.

Through a cross-sectional study, 546 suicide deaths and 6,818 suicide attempts from January 1, 2010 to December 31, 2014 in Ilam Province, Western Iran were explored. Inequality was measured by the absolute concentration index (ACI) and decomposed contributions were identified. All analyses were performed using STATA ver. 11.2 (Stata Corp., College Station, TX, USA).

The overall ACI for suicide deaths was -0.352 (95% confidence interval, -0.389 to -0.301). According to the results, 9.8% of socioeconomic inequality in suicide deaths was due to addiction in attempters. ACI ranged from -0.34 to -0.03 in 2010–2014, showing that inequality in suicide deaths declined over time.

Findings showed suicide deaths were distributed among the study population unequally, and our results confirmed a gap between advantaged and disadvantaged attempters in terms of death. Socioeconomic inequalities in suicide deaths tended to diminish over time, as suicide attempts progressed in Ilam Province.

This study was performed to evaluate the relationship between smoking status and suicidal ideations or suicide attempts in Korean adults.

The study used data from the 4th Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, and involved 17,065 participants. We used multiple logistic regression analysis to evaluate the relationship between smoking status and suicidal behavior. The results were adjusted for covariates including depression and physical disease.

After adjusting for covariates, current smokers (odds ratio [OR], 1.66; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.34 to 2.05) and former smokers (OR, 1.39; 95% CI, 1.13 to 1.72) proved more likely to have suicidal ideations than non-smokers. Among women, current smokers (OR, 2.00; 95% CI, 1.47 to 2.72) and former smokers (OR, 1.48; 95% CI, 1.11 to 1.99) were more likely to have suicidal ideations than non-smokers. However, among the men there was no significant relationship between smoking status and suicidal ideations. Among all the participants who had had suicidal ideations, there was a significant relationship between current smoking and suicide attempts (OR, 1.80; 95% CI, 1.05 to 3.07). There was also a relationship between current smoking and suicide attempts among women (OR, 2.40; 95% CI, 1.31 to 4.37), but no significant relationship among men.

There is a relationship between smoking status and suicidal ideations and suicide attempts in the general population of Korea. This relationship is particularly clear in women, and is independent of comorbid chronic disease and depression. Current smokers and former smokers are more likely to have suicidal ideations than non-smokers; current smokers are also more likely to have attempted suicide.