The report breaks down the total into economic and non-economic costs. Economic costs include services used in cases of suicide and attempted suicide, and production lost due to people exiting or being absent from the workforce. The economic cost of each suicide is put at $448,250, and the non-economic cost at $2,483,000.
The Cost of Suicide report updates and extends previous research carried out in 1995 by Coggan, Fanslow and Norton. The work by Coggan et al has been extended by constructing estimates of Disability-adjusted Life-Years (DALYS) lost as a result of suicide or attempted suicide. Overall an estimated 19,218 potential future life years were lost due to suicides occurring in 2002.
Purpose
The broad objective of this report is to calculate the .cost of suicide. to New Zealand. This objective has arisen in the context of concern about the relatively high rate of suicide in New Zealand.Detailed objectives include:
- updating the earlier work of Coggan, Fanslow and Norton (1995) on the costs of suicide, attempted suicide and self-harm to New Zealand
- cross-checking the results with the international literature
- inclusion of estimates of the costs of lost production and of the Disability-adjusted Life Years (DALYs) lost because of suicide and attempted suicide, and of the value of DALYs based on various assumptions.