Growing up in Troubles increased suicide risk

People who grew upduring the worst years of the conflict in Northern Ireland are at a far greater risk of suicide, it has emerged.

A study published today has found that the overall rate of suicide in the North doubled in the decade following the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.

Research carried out at Queen’s University in Belfast focused on a cohort of children and young people who grew up in the North during the 1970s, the worst years of violence. The group was found to have the highest and most rapidly increasing suicide rates and accounted for the upward trend in suicide following the 1998 agreement.