Introduction:According to the World Health Organization, more than 700,000 people die from suicide every year, making it an important public health priority (WHO, 2022). The development in the number of suicides over the past decades varies substantially between countries (WHO, 2022). In Denmark, this development represents a success story. In 1981, the number of suicides in Denmark was 1535, which dropped - rather dramatically - to reach a level of approximately 600 suicides per year over the following four decades (see Fig. 1A). It has previously been reported (Ostergaard, 2018) that this drop in suicides coincided with a marked increase in the male preponderance of suicides - as the male-female ratio in the number of suicides went from approximately 1.7 to 2.7 over the period from 1981 to 2015 (see Fig. 1B). The aim of this study was to bring this knowledge up-to-date by determining the development in the male-female suicide ratio in Denmark since 2015.Methods:Data on the number of male and female suicides in Denmark from 2016 to 2021 were obtained from the Danish Health Data Authority and the male-female ratio for each year was calculated. Data on the number of suicides in Denmark are publicly available (https://www.esundhed.dk/), and hence, no ethical review board approval was required for this study.
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