Suicide hot spots being missed through inaccurate location data

Imprecise location data for deaths in public places could be seeing ‘high risk’ sites overlooked, study finds.

Incorrect or imprecise geocoding could be seeing hot spots missed, the study suggests. Picture: Supplied

Almost half of the locations recorded in coronial data for suicides in public places are more than a kilometre from where the death occurred, a new study has found.

The world-first study by the Black Dog Institute finds around 28 per cent of coronial records for suicides in public areas couldn’t be matched to an address, which leads to a software-generated location coding that can place the site as imprecisely as in the middle of a suburb.

This automatic geocoding creates the potential for suicide clusters or “high risk” sites to be missed, along with the chance to implement targeted suicide prevention measures, the research published in the international journal Epidemiology finds.

“More than 23 per cent of all deaths by suicide occur in public locations, so the ability to analyse existing geographical data to identify a suicide hotspot is a vital tool for public health teams to respond quickly,” lead author Michelle Tye from the Black Dog Institute said.

“When a suicide occurs at a public location, such as a cliff or bridge, there is often no specific address to which the death can be matched,” Dr Tye said. “This is problematic, as coronial data is currently geocoded using automated software.

“Our findings show that around 28 per cent of coronial records couldn’t be matched to an address, leading to automatic coding which often assigns geographic coordinates for a more general location which might be in the middle of a street or even a suburb.”

Australian National University geographer Paul Konings, who collaborated on the study, said groups responsible for suicide prevention initiatives, which include barriers, gates and other structural deterrents, depend on this coronial data to work out where to target their resources.

“If a suicide occurs and this is incorrectly coded back to a centralised and imprecise ‘fallback’ location in the automatic geo-coding process, this could potentially misidentify high risk, small area locations for suicide,” Mr Konings said.

The researchers examined 25,700 records coded under the National Coronial Information system, and manually searched the case notes and examined other online material for suicide deaths that couldn’t be precisely matched to an address.

Using this approach, they were able to tie 95 per cent of public suicide deaths to an exact location, up from 68 per cent under the automated system.

“Though a manual geocoding process is more costly and time-consuming, it did improve the data precision immensely,” said Dr Tye.

“Ultimately, what we want to be able to do with this data is identify high risk locations early and accurately to save lives,” she said.

Suicide continues to be the leading cause of death of Australians aged 15-49. In 2019, 3318 people took their own life, and an estimated 65,000 people make a suicide attempt each year.

If you or someone you know is at risk of suicide, call Lifeline (13 11 14) or the Suicide Call Back Service (1300 659 467), or see a doctor.