placestats

Hospital beds vs. Suicide rate

Fades after adjusting for income

Across 165 countries, Hospital beds and Suicide rate rise and fall together at r = +0.51 (on a scale from −1 to +1, where 0 means no link). Comparing only countries with similar income (GDP per person) leaves r = +0.44, which could easily be chance (q = 0.16, allowing for the many pairs tested, and allowing for countries in the same region being alike).

Comparing countries across the middle half of suicide rate, 4.18 to 11.5 per 100,000, hospital beds is 1.41 per 1,000 people higher at the top of that range than the bottom. Comparing only countries with similar national income, the gap is 1.08 per 1,000 people.

Link before adjusting (r)+0.512p = 2.0e-12 · 165 countries
After adjusting for national income+0.441p = 3.4e-9 · likely range [+0.31, +0.56]
p, allowing for regions0.001standard error 0.076 · 7 regions
Check for luck (q)0.163across 12,497 pairs

How to read these.r runs from −1 (one goes up as the other goes down) to +1 (they rise together), and 0 means no link. Adjusting for national income means comparing countries with the same GDP per person, so differences in wealth can’t explain the link. Income is used in percentage terms, since an extra $1,000 means more to a poor country than to a rich one. p is how likely a link this strong would be if there were really none. Below 0.05 means it is unlikely to be chance. Very small values are written in short form: 1.1e-32 means a decimal point followed by 31 zeros and then 11, so very close to zero. The likely range is where the true figure probably lies, and a range that crosses zero means the link could easily be chance. Countries in the same region tend to resemble each other, so the third figure allows for that, which gives a fairer p. The standard error is the typical size of the error in r. Finally, testing this many pairs means some will look strong by luck alone. A q below 0.05 means this link is unlikely to be one of those.

Hospital beds · per 1,000 peoplelink with income +0.63 · high
Suicide rate · per 100,000link with income +0.23 · independent

“Link with income” is how closely each measure tracks GDP per person across countries, from −1 to +1.

Every country as a dot

Hospital beds · per 1,000 people →Suicide rate · per 100,000 →0.1512.80.4127.5Afghanistan: 0.35 per 1,000 people, 3.6 per 100,000Angola: 0.75 per 1,000 people, 8.11 per 100,000Albania: 2.9 per 1,000 people, 2.75 per 100,000United Arab Emirates: 1.87 per 1,000 people, 1.71 per 100,000Argentina: 3.36 per 1,000 people, 7.94 per 100,000Armenia: 4.24 per 1,000 people, 2.46 per 100,000Antigua and Barbuda: 3.42 per 1,000 people, 1.46 per 100,000Australia: 3.82 per 1,000 people, 13.1 per 100,000Austria: 6.7 per 1,000 people, 14.5 per 100,000Azerbaijan: 3.68 per 1,000 people, 1.56 per 100,000Burundi: 0.69 per 1,000 people, 7.65 per 100,000Belgium: 5.42 per 1,000 people, 18.4 per 100,000Benin: 0.43 per 1,000 people, 7.12 per 100,000Burkina Faso: 0.2 per 1,000 people, 8.5 per 100,000Bangladesh: 0.92 per 1,000 people, 2.81 per 100,000Bulgaria: 8.2 per 1,000 people, 9.51 per 100,000Bahrain: 1.84 per 1,000 people, 4.66 per 100,000Bahamas, The: 2.17 per 1,000 people, 3.25 per 100,000Bosnia and Herzegovina: 2.35 per 1,000 people, 8.97 per 100,000Belarus: 9.77 per 1,000 people, 15.6 per 100,000Belize: 1 per 1,000 people, 4.18 per 100,000Bolivia: 1.49 per 1,000 people, 4.2 per 100,000Brazil: 2.52 per 1,000 people, 7.59 per 100,000Barbados: 6.4 per 1,000 people, 3.5 per 100,000Brunei Darussalam: 3.58 per 1,000 people, 3.05 per 100,000Bhutan: 2.16 per 1,000 people, 4.9 per 100,000Botswana: 2.36 per 1,000 people, 8.35 per 100,000Central African Republic: 1 per 1,000 people, 9.19 per 100,000Canada: 2.54 per 1,000 people, 9.44 per 100,000Switzerland: 4.38 per 1,000 people, 14 per 100,000Chile: 1.94 per 1,000 people, 7.69 per 100,000China: 5.63 per 1,000 people, 8.95 per 100,000Cameroon: 2.65 per 1,000 people, 8.5 per 100,000Colombia: 1.7 per 1,000 people, 4.96 per 100,000Comoros: 2.16 per 1,000 people, 6 per 100,000Cabo Verde: 2.21 per 1,000 people, 14.9 per 100,000Costa Rica: 1.14 per 1,000 people, 8.06 per 100,000Cyprus: 2.15 per 1,000 people, 3.02 per 100,000Czechia: 6.54 per 1,000 people, 13.3 per 100,000Germany: 7.55 per 1,000 people, 12.9 per 100,000Djibouti: 1.4 per 1,000 people, 7.96 per 100,000Denmark: 2.43 per 1,000 people, 10.5 per 100,000Dominican Republic: 0.75 per 1,000 people, 4.2 per 100,000Algeria: 1.61 per 1,000 people, 2.18 per 100,000Ecuador: 1.32 per 1,000 people, 7.56 per 100,000Egypt, Arab Rep.: 1.06 per 1,000 people, 0.63 per 100,000Spain: 2.91 per 1,000 people, 8.72 per 100,000Estonia: 4.13 per 1,000 people, 14.9 per 100,000Ethiopia: 0.33 per 1,000 people, 6.07 per 100,000Finland: 2.61 per 1,000 people, 14.6 per 100,000Fiji: 1.89 per 1,000 people, 8.27 per 100,000France: 5.65 per 1,000 people, 16.6 per 100,000Gabon: 1.95 per 1,000 people, 7.3 per 100,000United Kingdom: 2.42 per 1,000 people, 9.55 per 100,000Georgia: 4.04 per 1,000 people, 5.1 per 100,000Ghana: 0.69 per 1,000 people, 5.32 per 100,000Guinea: 0.3 per 1,000 people, 4.82 per 100,000Gambia, The: 1.11 per 1,000 people, 4.81 per 100,000Equatorial Guinea: 2.1 per 1,000 people, 7.03 per 100,000Greece: 4.27 per 1,000 people, 4.68 per 100,000Grenada: 3.01 per 1,000 people, 1.3 per 100,000Guatemala: 0.45 per 1,000 people, 4.94 per 100,000Guyana: 3.24 per 1,000 people, 24.8 per 100,000Honduras: 0.53 per 1,000 people, 2.97 per 100,000Croatia: 5.6 per 1,000 people, 15.7 per 100,000Haiti: 4.9 per 1,000 people, 7.81 per 100,000Hungary: 6.63 per 1,000 people, 16.4 per 100,000Indonesia: 1.37 per 1,000 people, 1.2 per 100,000India: 1.59 per 1,000 people, 12.6 per 100,000Ireland: 2.96 per 1,000 people, 8.55 per 100,000Iran, Islamic Rep.: 1.85 per 1,000 people, 4.07 per 100,000Iraq: 1.06 per 1,000 people, 2.97 per 100,000Iceland: 2.83 per 1,000 people, 11.9 per 100,000Israel: 3.14 per 1,000 people, 4.37 per 100,000Italy: 3.06 per 1,000 people, 6.99 per 100,000Jamaica: 1.65 per 1,000 people, 1.69 per 100,000Jordan: 1.41 per 1,000 people, 0.6 per 100,000Japan: 12.6 per 1,000 people, 17.4 per 100,000Kazakhstan: 6.54 per 1,000 people, 14.6 per 100,000Kenya: 1.33 per 1,000 people, 4.58 per 100,000Kyrgyz Republic: 3.73 per 1,000 people, 6.8 per 100,000Cambodia: 0.73 per 1,000 people, 4.5 per 100,000Kiribati: 1.86 per 1,000 people, 17.5 per 100,000Korea, Rep.: 12.8 per 1,000 people, 27.5 per 100,000Kuwait: 2.33 per 1,000 people, 2.31 per 100,000Lao PDR: 1.71 per 1,000 people, 4.58 per 100,000Lebanon: 2.73 per 1,000 people, 0.7 per 100,000Liberia: 1.59 per 1,000 people, 5.97 per 100,000Libya: 3.5 per 1,000 people, 5 per 100,000St. Lucia: 1.09 per 1,000 people, 5.27 per 100,000Sri Lanka: 3.93 per 1,000 people, 14.7 per 100,000Lithuania: 5.71 per 1,000 people, 22.1 per 100,000Luxembourg: 3.95 per 1,000 people, 8.22 per 100,000Latvia: 4.95 per 1,000 people, 15.2 per 100,000Morocco: 0.73 per 1,000 people, 2.91 per 100,000Moldova: 5.54 per 1,000 people, 14.1 per 100,000Madagascar: 0.32 per 1,000 people, 6.09 per 100,000Maldives: 4.56 per 1,000 people, 1.47 per 100,000Mexico: 1.01 per 1,000 people, 6.95 per 100,000North Macedonia: 4.74 per 1,000 people, 5.78 per 100,000Mali: 0.25 per 1,000 people, 4.16 per 100,000Malta: 4.09 per 1,000 people, 6.47 per 100,000Myanmar: 1.07 per 1,000 people, 2.89 per 100,000Montenegro: 3.82 per 1,000 people, 11.3 per 100,000Mongolia: 8.58 per 1,000 people, 18.5 per 100,000Mozambique: 0.74 per 1,000 people, 10.6 per 100,000Mauritius: 3.8 per 1,000 people, 10.5 per 100,000Malawi: 1.3 per 1,000 people, 7.57 per 100,000Malaysia: 1.96 per 1,000 people, 5.65 per 100,000Niger: 0.28 per 1,000 people, 4.48 per 100,000Nicaragua: 0.97 per 1,000 people, 4.24 per 100,000Netherlands: 2.42 per 1,000 people, 11.5 per 100,000Norway: 3.3 per 1,000 people, 13.2 per 100,000Nepal: 0.54 per 1,000 people, 10.1 per 100,000New Zealand: 2.51 per 1,000 people, 11.9 per 100,000Oman: 0.99 per 1,000 people, 0.91 per 100,000Pakistan: 0.63 per 1,000 people, 5.64 per 100,000Panama: 1.95 per 1,000 people, 3.29 per 100,000Peru: 1.56 per 1,000 people, 1.54 per 100,000Philippines: 0.97 per 1,000 people, 3.49 per 100,000Papua New Guinea: 0.62 per 1,000 people, 1.82 per 100,000Poland: 6.04 per 1,000 people, 13.7 per 100,000Portugal: 3.48 per 1,000 people, 11.5 per 100,000Paraguay: 1.04 per 1,000 people, 6.36 per 100,000West Bank and Gaza: 1.3 per 1,000 people, 0.65 per 100,000Qatar: 1.25 per 1,000 people, 4.7 per 100,000Romania: 7.23 per 1,000 people, 9.62 per 100,000Russian Federation: 6.81 per 1,000 people, 21.4 per 100,000Rwanda: 0.75 per 1,000 people, 8.68 per 100,000Saudi Arabia: 2.41 per 1,000 people, 0.95 per 100,000Sudan: 0.66 per 1,000 people, 3.16 per 100,000Senegal: 0.71 per 1,000 people, 6.76 per 100,000Singapore: 2.81 per 1,000 people, 8.1 per 100,000El Salvador: 1.21 per 1,000 people, 7.63 per 100,000Somalia, Fed. Rep.: 0.87 per 1,000 people, 7.96 per 100,000Serbia: 5.78 per 1,000 people, 15.1 per 100,000Sao Tome and Principe: 2.91 per 1,000 people, 0.86 per 100,000Suriname: 2.87 per 1,000 people, 22.3 per 100,000Slovak Republic: 5.57 per 1,000 people, 9.91 per 100,000Slovenia: 4.11 per 1,000 people, 18.9 per 100,000Sweden: 1.9 per 1,000 people, 13.8 per 100,000Eswatini: 2.02 per 1,000 people, 27.2 per 100,000Seychelles: 2.63 per 1,000 people, 4.27 per 100,000Syrian Arab Republic: 1.43 per 1,000 people, 0.59 per 100,000Chad: 0.15 per 1,000 people, 5.21 per 100,000Togo: 0.33 per 1,000 people, 9.34 per 100,000Thailand: 2.39 per 1,000 people, 16.6 per 100,000Tajikistan: 4.04 per 1,000 people, 2.43 per 100,000Turkmenistan: 3.6 per 1,000 people, 6.83 per 100,000Timor-Leste: 0.38 per 1,000 people, 3.56 per 100,000Tonga: 2.48 per 1,000 people, 4.73 per 100,000Trinidad and Tobago: 2.37 per 1,000 people, 13.3 per 100,000Tunisia: 1.82 per 1,000 people, 1.84 per 100,000Turkiye: 3.05 per 1,000 people, 2.69 per 100,000Tanzania: 0.84 per 1,000 people, 5.1 per 100,000Uganda: 0.5 per 1,000 people, 5.5 per 100,000Ukraine: 6.14 per 1,000 people, 21.2 per 100,000Uruguay: 2.44 per 1,000 people, 24.8 per 100,000United States: 2.68 per 1,000 people, 15.6 per 100,000Uzbekistan: 4.89 per 1,000 people, 8.34 per 100,000St. Vincent and the Grenadines: 3.21 per 1,000 people, 0.41 per 100,000Viet Nam: 2.52 per 1,000 people, 7.3 per 100,000South Africa: 2.25 per 1,000 people, 22.3 per 100,000Zambia: 2 per 1,000 people, 7.13 per 100,000Zimbabwe: 1.95 per 1,000 people, 17.3 per 100,000BGRBLRBRBEGYJPNKOROMNPNGSWZURYZAF

best-fit line line after adjusting

Four ways to measure the link

MethodrpCountries
Standard (Pearson), not adjusted+0.5122.0e-12165
By rank (Spearman), not adjusted+0.4355.4e-9165
Standard (Pearson), adjusted for national income+0.4413.4e-9165
By rank (Spearman), adjusted for national income+0.3242.3e-5165

The rank version uses only each country’s place in line, from lowest to highest, so a few extreme countries count for less. The adjusted and unadjusted versions use the same 165 countries: those that report both measures and GDP per person. So the gap between them comes from the adjustment, not from a change in which countries are counted. Drop in the size of r after adjusting: +0.071 (a minus sign means it grew).

How solid is it?

Leaving out one country at a time, r ranges from +0.391 (without KOR) to +0.462 (without SWZ). The bar above shows that range on a scale from −1 to +1, with the solid line at the full result. The single country that moves r most: KOR (-0.050).

Within each region

Countries are not separate, unrelated cases, and neighbors share a lot. A link that holds inside each region is far more believable than one that shows up only when comparing regions.

nr
East Asia & Pacific21+0.74
Europe & Central Asia48+0.52
Latin America & Caribbean29+0.13
Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan & Pakistan22+0.20
Sub-Saharan Africa37+0.14

By income third

If the link shows up only in the richest third of countries, it is a feature of rich countries, not a general pattern.

nr
Poorest third55+0.12
Middle third55+0.44
Richest third55+0.55

By largest religious group

Countries grouped by a label they share, such as main religion, rather than by a number. Groups of fewer than twelve countries are not shown. These groups differ in income, region and history all at once. So a gap between them is a place to start asking questions, not an answer.

nr
Christians100+0.34
Muslims44+0.38

By last european coloniser

Countries grouped by a label they share, such as main religion, rather than by a number. Groups of fewer than twelve countries are not shown. These groups differ in income, region and history all at once. So a gap between them is a place to start asking questions, not an answer.

nr
France22+0.13
Never a European colony21+0.75
Spain19+0.27
United Kingdom53+0.13

Without outliers (countries far outside the middle half of countries on either measure, by more than one and a half times the width of that middle half): r = +0.419 after dropping 8 countries.

Two series, one country

Both measures over the years for one country you pick. The two charts are stacked so they share only the years along the bottom.

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Over time, within countries

Everything above compares countries with each other at one moment. This section compares each country only with itself over 22years. So a link here can’t come from anything about a country that stays the same, such as its history, geography, institutions or culture.

The link shows up within countries over time (r = +0.295) but mostly disappears in year-to-year changes (r = +0.041). That points to slow trends particular to each country, not the two measures moving together from year to year.

Across countries (adjusted)+0.441for comparison
Within countries+0.367each country vs itself
…and vs the same year elsewhere+0.295q = 0.010 · 148 countries
Year-on-year changes+0.041q = 0.356
Read with care.
  • Almost all of this indicator's variation is between countries, not within them, so the within-country estimate rests on a small part of the data.
  • The association is much weaker in year-on-year changes than in levels, which points to shared country-specific trends.

2,660 country-years (one country in one year), 148 countries, 2000–2021, about 18 years each on average. Share of the variation that happens within countries over time: 8% for Hospital beds, 5% for Suicide rate. The margins of error allow for each country appearing many times, and for each year’s value being close to the year before.

Year-to-year changes are a cautious test, not a final answer. Looking only at changes from one year to the next removes each country’s own trends. But it also makes measurement mistakes louder, which pulls the results toward zero. A near-zero result here is weak evidence of no link, not proof.

With one measure years behind the other

0.40−0.4-100+10years Suicide rate trails Hospital beds →lag -10: r = 0.301 (n = 1,767)lag -9: r = 0.305 (n = 1,897)lag -8: r = 0.303 (n = 2,021)lag -7: r = 0.298 (n = 2,132)lag -6: r = 0.300 (n = 2,243)lag -5: r = 0.303 (n = 2,351)lag -4: r = 0.298 (n = 2,453)lag -3: r = 0.299 (n = 2,554)lag -2: r = 0.294 (n = 2,655)lag -1: r = 0.295 (n = 2,677)lag +0: r = 0.295 (n = 2,660)lag +1: r = 0.284 (n = 2,590)lag +2: r = 0.287 (n = 2,510)lag +3: r = 0.284 (n = 2,444)lag +4: r = 0.288 (n = 2,405)lag +5: r = 0.274 (n = 2,334)lag +6: r = 0.262 (n = 2,261)lag +7: r = 0.259 (n = 2,209)lag +8: r = 0.266 (n = 2,124)lag +9: r = 0.274 (n = 2,033)lag +10: r = 0.275 (n = 2,028)

Same year (lag 0): +0.295. A peak away from zero does not show which comes first. These series change slowly — this year’s value is close to last year’s. That makes the curve smooth and nearly symmetric, whatever produced the data. Even a sharp peak at one lag (a gap of some years) would not prove that one measure changes the other.

The data


per 1,000 people
per 100,000		Years
Korea, Rep. KOR12.827.52022, 2021
Japan JPN12.617.42022, 2021
Belarus BLR9.7715.62023, 2021
Mongolia MNG8.5818.52023, 2021
Bulgaria BGR8.29.512023, 2021
Germany DEU7.5512.92023, 2021
Romania ROU7.239.622022, 2021
Russian Federation RUS6.8121.42023, 2021
Austria AUT6.714.52022, 2021
Hungary HUN6.6316.42022, 2021
Kazakhstan KAZ6.5414.62020, 2021
Czechia CZE6.5413.32022, 2021
Barbados BRB6.43.52023, 2021
Ukraine UKR6.1421.22022, 2021
Poland POL6.0413.72022, 2021

World Bank, World Development Indicators
World Bank, World Development Indicators

Sources

Hospital beds

Hospital beds (per 1,000 people)

World Bank · CC BY 4.0 · updated quarterly

Suicide rate

Suicide mortality rate (per 100,000 population)

World Health Organization Global Health Observatory · CC BY 4.0 · updated quarterly

Estimates from a statistical model. Differences between countries partly reflect how deaths are registered, and how deaths of unclear intent are recorded. Those recording habits are linked to both religion and income.

How this was computed

Data used: most recent value in 2010-2025; values come from 2010–2023. To adjust for income, each measure is first predicted from GDP per person (in percentage terms, on a log scale) with a straight-line fit. Only what is left over is then compared. This is called a partial correlation. The line is drawn the standard way (ordinary least squares), which picks the line that comes closest to all the countries at once. The error margins allow for countries in the same region resembling each other, using 7 World Bank regions. The q-value corrects for testing all 12,497 pairs at once, using the Benjamini–Hochberg method. Underlying data last updated DYB 2024. How the country data works · explore Hospital beds and Suicide rate

This page shows that two measures go together. It does not show that Hospital beds changes Suicide rate, or the reverse. These figures also describe countries, not individual people. See the ecological fallacy.

More links with Hospital beds or Suicide rate