Suicide and structural violence. Systematic review of a correlation marked by colonialism

Abstract

Suicide is the last of the external causes of death (EC) to have a concentration of cases (80%) in low-and middle-income countries. There is a consolidated literature identifying structural violence as a determinant for EC, but little regarding suicide. The aim of this paper is to define a new theoretical framework for the study of suicide as a social phenomenon, where social interaction reflects the hallmarks of colonialism. The mortality data from Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), Seattle, Washington, were analyzed and a systematic review of the literature on suicide, structural violence, colonialism, democracy and development, covering the period 1968 and 2018, was conducted based on Prisma methodology. Centered on critical theory, social determination was adopted as basic category for the identification of the reflexes of colonialism in the determinants of epidemiological profile of suicide, making possible its framing as a “pathology of power”. Statistical data and a systematic review identified the risk groups for suicide – those most affected by the asymmetry of power arising from colonialism – even in high-income countries.