Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Tania Sawicki Mead: UNICEF Aotearoa Director of Communications on New Zealand's child suicide rate

Transcript

Tania Sawicki Mead: UNICEF Aotearoa Director of Communications on New Zealand's child suicide rate · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So we've got a UNISEF report out and it's pretty
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: grim reading if you're talking about youth suicide in New
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Zealand compared to the rest of the world, compared to
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  Speaker 1: rich countries and the rest of the world anyway. So
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  Speaker 1: what it says is, pre COVID we had a rate
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  Speaker 1: of fourteen point nine per one hundred thousand people. This
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  Speaker 1: is for fifteen to nineteen year olds. After COVID it
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  Speaker 1: increased to seventeen point one, which means we were the
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: highest in the developed world and almost three times higher
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  Speaker 1: than the average for high income countries. Tanya siwiky Meat
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  Speaker 1: is from UNIICF with me this morning. Tanya, good morning,
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  Speaker 1: good morning. What do you think pushed that up during COVID.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Look, what we did see is that across a
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  Speaker 2: lot of the countries analyzed in this report that you said,
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  Speaker 2: well the countries are we set e countries, there was
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  Speaker 2: quite a significant decrease in life satisfaction for young people.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: And you know, we could attribute some of that faciiti
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: in to the COVID pandemic, the disruption that that had
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  Speaker 2: on everyone's lives, but particularly the disruption that it had
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: on young people's lives. So school being disrupted, routines being upended,
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: the uncertainty, the fear of the impact of that really
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  Speaker 2: significant period of time. But for New Zealand, you know,
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: as you mentioned in your introduction, we have this really
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  Speaker 2: staggeringly high suicide rate for young people when compared to
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  Speaker 2: other countries, and that hasn't significantly shifted over the period
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  Speaker 2: pre or post COVID enough to really make it then
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  Speaker 2: in the horrific statistics that we have. So there are
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  Speaker 2: many other factors I think going on there As to
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  Speaker 2: White mu Zealands, use suicide rate remained so stubbornly high.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: And these numbers are just up to twenty twenty two, right,
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  Speaker 1: but we have seen although we don't know for sure,
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  Speaker 1: but potentially those numbers coming down over the last couple
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  Speaker 1: of years.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: Yes, So how suicide reporting works is that there are
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  Speaker 2: confirmed data. So that's where the coroner has confirmed that
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  Speaker 2: our death was a suicide, and it takes quite a
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  Speaker 2: while for that data essentially to catch up to the
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: present day. So what we have is confirmed data in
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  Speaker 2: New Zealand for up to twenty twenty two, and this report,
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  Speaker 2: because it's trying to compare like for like with all
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  Speaker 2: these different countries, uses data that aggregates a little earlier
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  Speaker 2: than that's more like up to twenty twenty one. And
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  Speaker 2: so what we do see in New Zealand's our own
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  Speaker 2: data that it collects on suicide is that there may
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  Speaker 2: be some small improvements, but not enough to actually shift
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  Speaker 2: the facts that we are still that massive outlie when
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  Speaker 2: we compared to those other countries. It's still it may
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  Speaker 2: be making small improvements, but it's still far too high, all.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Right, Tanya, really appreciate your time this morning. Tanya Sowaki
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: made from UNI Set for more from earlier edition with
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Ryan Bridge. Listen live to News Talks it Be from
• 2:44
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