Association of daily changes in air temperature and other meteorological variables on suicide frequency in Bavaria

在世界范围内，自杀的季节性模式主要出现在春季或初夏。此外，根据每日和每月的数据显示，气温的上升与自杀人数的增加有关。对相对湿度、气压、日照时数或降雨量等其他气象变量的影响也进行了调查，但结果不一致。到目前为止，关于气象学和自杀频率的研究在德国几乎没有受到关注。由于每个人每天都暴露在气象条件下，研究气象对心理健康的影响是一个重要的研究课题。需要阐明自杀的危险因素，以制定适当的干预和治疗策略，以帮助防止未来发生更多此类悲惨事件。在这个项目中，我们计划基于1990年至2006年收集的四个巴伐利亚城市和11个县的死亡率和气象数据，调查日常气象条件(如气温、相对湿度、气压、日照时间、云量和降雨量)对自杀风险的影响。我们的大型数据库包含17年来收集的约10,000例自杀事件，使我们能够进一步探索季节性模式随时间的变化，以及气象影响的潜在影响因素，如性别、年龄和区域特征。因此，我们的目标是澄清气象变量和自杀风险之间的联系，并确定潜在的易受影响的亚群以及可能导致自杀人数增加的天气条件(例如温度和相对湿度之间的相互作用)。

Worldwide, seasonal patterns of suicides have been observed mainly with peaks in spring or early summer. Furthermore, increases in air temperature have been shown to be associated with an elevated number of suicides based on daily and monthly data. The impact of other meteorological variables such as relative humidity, barometric pressure, sunshine duration, or precipitation has also been investigated but with inconsistent findings. So far, studies on meteorology and suicide frequency have received little attention in Germany. Since everyone is exposed to meteorological conditions every day, research on the impact of meteorology on mental health is an important research topic. Elucidating risk factors for committing suicide are needed to develop appropriate intervention and treatment strategies which can help to prevent more of these tragic events in the future.In this project we plan to investigate the impact of daily meteorological conditions (e.g. air temperature, relative humidity, barometric pressure, sunshine duration, cloud cover, and precipitation) on the risk of committing suicide based on mortality and meteorological data gathered in four Bavarian cities and eleven counties between 1990 and 2006. Our large database of about 10,000 suicides gathered during 17 years enables us furthermore to explore changes in seasonal patterns over time as well as potential modifiers of the meteorological effects such as gender, age, and regional characteristics. Therefore, we aim to clarify the link between meteorological variables and the risk of suicide and identify potentially susceptible subgroups as well as weather conditions (e.g. interaction between temperature and relative humidity), which might lead to an increase in suicides.