Preliminary investigation of the possible association between arsenic levels in drinking water and suicide mortality.

BACKGROUND: Arsenic-contaminated drinking water (ACDW) represents a major global public health problem. A few previous studies suggested that consuming ACDW may be associated with elevated risk for depression.

AIM: Since depression is the most relevant risk factor for suicide, we hypothesized that consumption of ACDW may be also associated with suicide.

METHOD: To investigate this, we compared the age-standardized suicide rates (SSR) of 1639 Hungarian settlements with low (≤10μg/l), intermediate (11-30μg/l), high (31-50μg/l) and very high (≥51μg/l) levels of arsenic in drinking water.

RESULT: We found a positive association between SSR and consumption of ACDW.

LIMITATIONS: (1) we used aggregated (i.e., non-individual) data; (2) we have not adjusted our model for important medical and socio-demographic determinants of suicidal behavior; (3) we had no data on differences in bottled water consumption between settlements.

CONCLUSIONS: Our results indicate that in addition to its well-known adverse health effects, consumption of ACDW may also be associated with suicidal behavior.