Suicide is considered a public health issued by the World Health Organization. Suicide is amongst the ten most frequent causes of death in all ages, in addition to being the second or third cause of death between 15 and 34 years of age. Estimates show that for every suicide there are at least ten suicides attempts that require medical attention and for every suicide attempt recorded, four are not known. The aim of this paper is to analyze the socioeconomic determinants of suicide rates for Brazilian micro-regions, taking into account spatial aspects of the problem. The hypothesis of this paper is that there is a "spatial contagion effect" for suicide, that is to say, the neighborhood suicide rates are an important determinant of the regional suicide rate. This is achieved by the use of spatial econometrics techniques to assess whether there is spatial dependence for suicide rates in micro-regions.
mortality; suicide rates; spatial econometrics; Brazil
