3.4.4. Regional Variation

One study presented regional variations in youth suicide from 1970–1999, which were not broken down by gender [21]. However, this suggested that young people in remote areas of East Greenland had generally higher suicide rates, rising from approximately 200 per 100,000 person-years in 1970–1974, to approximately 800 per 100,000 person-years in 1995–1999. Meanwhile, youth suicide rates peaked in the capital, Nuuk, in 1980–1984 at above 300 per 100,000 person-years, and fell to between 100 and 200 per 100,000 person-years in 1995–1999. Suicide rates for young people in West Greenland were lowest among regions but rose throughout the 1970s and 1980s, overtaking those in Nuuk in 1985–1989 where they plateaued at approximately 200 per 100,000 person-years throughout the 1980s and 1990s. As the majority of these youth suicides will have been in men, only tentative conclusions can be drawn about these patterns of high suicide rates in rural areas applying to males aged 15–29 [21].
