One suicide every 40 seconds: World Health Organization report

The research found that suicide killed more people each year than conflicts and natural catastrophes, accounting for more than half of the world's 1.5 million violent deaths annually, World Health Organization staff told reporters at its presentation in Geneva, CNN reports. The report, the U.N. agency's first on the subject, analyzed data on suicides from 172 countries, and took a decade to compile. Setting a goal to cut national suicide rates by 10 percent by 2020, the organization said suicide was a major but preventable health problem that health authorities had failed to adequately address due to a number of complicated factors. Shrouded in taboo "This report is a call for action to address a large public health problem which has been shrouded in taboo for far too long," Dr. Margaret Chan, director-general of the WHO, said in a statement. While warning that data on national suicide rates was imperfect, with fewer than half the surveyed countries keeping accurate figures, the WHO said it used available data to produce estimates on suicide prevalence worldwide. The global rate was estimated at 11.4 per 100,000, with men almost twice as likely as women to take their own lives -- rising to as many as three times more male victims than female in some richer countries. On average, high-income countries had a slightly higher suicide rate -- 12.7 per 100,000 people -- than low- and middle-income nations, where the rate was 11.2. For full version go to