PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Sang-Wook Yi
AU  - Myoungjee Jung
AU  - Heejin Kimm
AU  - Jae-Woong Sull
AU  - Eunsook Lee
AU  - Kwang Ok Lee
AU  - Heechoul Ohrr
TI  - Usual alcohol consumption and suicide mortality among the Korean elderly in rural communities: Kangwha Cohort Study
AID  - 10.1136/jech-2015-206849
DP  - 2016 Aug 01
TA  - Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health
PG  - 778--783
VI  - 70
IP  - 8
4099  - http://jech.bmj.com/content/70/8/778.short
4100  - http://jech.bmj.com/content/70/8/778.full
SO  - J Epidemiol Community Health2016 Aug 01; 70
AB  - Background The evidence from prospective studies on whether greater usual alcohol consumption is associated with a higher risk of death by suicide in the general population is inconclusive.Methods 6163 participants (2635 men; 3528 women) in a 1985 survey among rural residents in Korea aged 55 years and above were followed until 2008. A Cox model was used to calculate HRs of suicide death after adjustment for demographic, socioeconomic and health-related confounders.Results 37 men and 24 women died by suicide. Elderly persons who consumed alcohol daily, 70 g alcohol (5 drinks) or more per drinking day, or 210 g alcohol (15 drinks) or more per week had higher suicide mortality (p<0.05), compared with non-drinkers. An increase of one drinking day per week (HR=1.17, 95% CI 1.05 to 1.31), 70 g (5 drinks) additional alcohol intake per drinking day (HR=1.38, 95% CI 1.13 to 1.70), and 140 g (10 drinks) additional alcohol intake per week was associated with a 17%, 38% and 12% higher risk of suicide death, respectively. Women had a higher relative risk of suicide death associated with alcohol consumption, compared with men.Conclusions A greater frequency and amount of usual alcohol consumption was linearly associated with higher suicide death. Given the same amount of alcohol consumption, women might have a higher relative risk of suicide than men. Our findings support ‘the lower the better’ for alcohol intake, no protective effect of moderate alcohol consumption, and a sex-specific guideline (lower alcohol threshold for women) as actions to prevent suicide death.