Data Visualization

Blog of the Data Visualization & Communication Course at OSB-AUB

This is my favorite part about analytics: Taking boring flat data and bringing it to life through visualization” John Tukey

Suicide Mortality Rate

Suicide Mortality Rate

Suicide is something no one wants to talk about, the majority of people who are feeling down don’t openly talk about it. The highest population that is being affected are countries that are surrounding Russia, and in South Africa. There are 800k people commit suicide each year, this is due to many economical issues in these countries. Imagine Karim a husband and a father of 2 living in a country where the basic human needs are neglected. Now Karim is struggling to find a job due to the high unemployment rate, this means he is not able to feed his wife and kids. Imagine being in his place in a country with a 26%  unemployment rate. People that are unemployed have a higher chance of commit suicide due their mental health taking a hit this could spiral own a dark hole which is hard to come out off. Unemployment forced 40% of the population to suffer from severe or moderate food insecurity and this is the disruption of food intake or eating pattern due to the lack of money and other resources. Now Karim can’t just feed his family but also can’t get the basic human needs.

All these problems correlate strongly with the Social protection and Labor Programs when these programs are lacking the result were higher suicide mortality rate. These programs help the population in managing risks and protect them from food insecurities through various methods. Poland has a high social program and the results of the suicide mortality rate is significantly lower compared to Lesotho which is the opposite with high suicide rates and low social program . This indicates to lower suicide rates we must increase the aid to the population by offering labor market, unemployment benefits, and other programs. Now Karim can relax and calm down as help is on its way to assist him and other people who are in need.

Reasons of Suicide in Europe and Africa

Reasons of Suicide in Europe and Africa

Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one’s own death. Each year approximately one million people die from suicide. In the last 45 years suicide rates have increased by 60% worldwide. This visualizations are part of a research project to identify the reasons of high suicide in Africa and Europe followed recommendations. This two map visualizations represent the names of the highest countries with suicide rate on the maps. The reasons of high suicide in Africa is high spread of lethal deceases like AIDS/HIV (and lack of proper health systems. Represented in one of the graphs, the HIV/AIDS rates of Africa Countries are in the graph were the blue bars of the graph represent countries with highest suicide. In another graph, data showed that post Soviet Union countries have higher suicide rate than other European countries. Also, the European countries where there is high substance use , the suicide rates rises. It is shown in the graph that countries which are in blue, the ones with highest suicide and very high in substance use.

Who is more exposed to Suicide?

Who is more exposed to Suicide?

Now a day’s suicide became one of the three main causes of mortality among males and females that are 15 to 44 years old. In addition to that researches showed that Europe and Africa are the continents with the most number of suicide deaths. A study was performed to deeply analyze this topic in these two continents specifically. For this purpose, data was taken from World development index and merged with externally data from credible resources, then visuals were formed using tableau to find relationships between the variables we have and the numbers of suicides in different countries. The results show that the highest age group with suicide numbers are 35-54 years, literature shows that those age groups have the highest responsibilities. Followed by 55-74 years, a possible reason would be that people in this age should reach all their goals maybe if they didn’t, they don’t find themselves worthy of life, or the opposite, the fact that people accomplished all their goals in life and don’t see a point in living anymore.