3.4.3. Period Effects

Gender-specific suicide data on cohorts born from 1948–1978 provide evidence that suicide rates in the age group 15–29 rose in successive cohorts born from 1952, matching the onset of major sociocultural change. For example suicide rates in men aged 15–29 born in 1952 were approximately 4 per 100,000 births in that cohort, rising to approximately 60 per 100,000 births in the 1978 birth cohort [21]. Whilst this is suggestive of a period effect, we lack comparative data describing other age groups in those cohorts [25].
