A review of available evidence has linked exposure to air pollutants with an increased risk of death by suicide or suicidal thoughts, with particulate matter PM2.5 and PM10 and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) posing the greatest risks.
The researchers explained that air pollutants and water polluted with arsenic, lead, lithium or nitrate, have been linked to neurological effects, including chronic inflammation and nerve damage, which can impair brain function and influence mood and stress resilience. “It is well known that many air pollutants, specifically many metals, may cause wide-ranging neurological effects, including depression, anxiety, etc. Therefore, a link between air pollutant exposure and mental health disorders, including suicide, is not unexpected,” Mullins, not involved with the study, said.
The findings, published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health , underscore the need to consider environmental exposures as potentially modifiable risk factors in suicide prevention strategies, researchers said. The interplay of individual, biological, and contextual factors means that suicide prevention is really a public health issue, they said. However, while the effect of environmental exposures on mental health outcomes, such as depression or anxiety, has been extensively studied, the potential role of environmental factors on the risk of suicide is less well understood, the researchers said. Ben Mullins, professor at Curtin University’s school of population health in Australia, said the study has undertaken one of the first meta-analyses exploring the link between air pollution and suicide.
