Health

Commonplace Book: Mental Health

2025-10-22

With around 5.5k cases annually, self-harm is one of Wales’ top 5 causes of hospital admission.

It’s clear that our mental health is shaped by social and economic factors. For example in England, adults in the most deprived areas have higher rates of mental health problems (26.2%) than those in the least deprived areas (16%).

In England, the suspected suicide rate was 11 per 100,000 in the 2 years up to January 2025 — 17.4 per 100,000 in males, 5.0 per 100,000 in females. The rate among unemployed people was 126.7 per 100,000. Men are around 3 times more likely to die by suicide than women — a gap that has widened over time. Women were more like to report a suicide attempt than men and just as likely to have suicidal thoughts.