Spatio-Temporal Aspect of Suicide and Suicidal Ideation: An Application of SaTScan to Detect Hotspots in Four Major Cities of Tamil Nadu

Abstract

The history of suicide in India and particularly in Tamil Nadu has been witnessed since the existence of human settlement through ages, from pre-historic to ancient, medieval, modern and even to contemporary time. The primary objective of the present work is to identify the hotspots of suicide prevailing among four major cities of Tamil Nadu, namely, Chennai, Coimbatore, Madurai and Tiruchirappalli, for the time frame of 2012-2019. In addition to this, we are interested in descriptive and inferential analysis to find out some prominent attributes using multivariate statistical techniques. The present work analysed the Spatio-Temporal and longitudinal time series data acquired from National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB). Suicide hotspots due to various factors are detected using SaTScan. Despite metropolitan and cosmopolitan characteristics, high and dense urban population, proportionately higher cluster of illegal emigrants and settlements, Chennai being a capital city has not been identified as a hotspot of suicide for any factors under study. This study is useful and relevant for control and monitoring bodies in planning and curbing such a precious loss of human lives in the state of Tamil Nadu.