README file

This readme file decribed the data contained in this folder. The current files can be found in this folder (in addition to this readme file) 
and each are described in detail below:

1 suicidedata1880to2015


DATA FILES
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1 suicidedata1880to2015
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This is a CSV UTF-8 file and contains data pertainined to suicide counts, population denominators (where available) and crude suicide rates

The data covers the period between 1880 and 2015

The data file contains the following columns and are outlined below in the following format - column #: variable name (description):

column 1: year (year of data)

column 2: suirate (crude rate extracted from published reports of data from  Sri Lanka’s Registrar General (which is based on data collected by
the police - see notes) or calculated using suicide counts and population denominators)

column 3: pop (population count where extracted. Data from the Sri Lankan census department for population counts at census years. (http://www.statistics.gov.lk/Population/StaticalInformation/CPH2011)
Mid year estimates were extracted and were corrected by smoothing trend lines between census years. See description in http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4148962/pdf/12889_2014_Article_6975.pdf)

column 4: suino (count of suicide deaths. This is not available for all years. These counts are provided by the Police Department in Sri Lanka https://www.police.lk/index.php/item/138-crime-statistics)

       
NOTES

Historic data on suicide death counts/rates were not available directly from the police statistics department but were extracted from previous analysis
of these data:

1880-1950: Straus JH, Straus MA. Suicide, Homicide, and Social Structure in Ceylon. Am J Sociol. 1953;58(5):461-9. (https://www.jstor.org/stable/2772507)
1950-1977: Kearney RN, Miller BD. Suicide and internal migration in Sri Lanka. Journal of Asian and African studies. 1988;23(3-4):287-304. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11617266/)