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 Since many suicides happen when eviction has been ordered but not
yet carried out, the authors defined “eviction” as loss of the right
to possess one’s dwelling, rather than actually leaving it.
“The eviction problem in Sweden has historically been explained as
an unintended consequence of the provision of homes to poor
households and families with social problems, that is, to
individuals who have a high eviction risk in the first place, thus
viewing home evictions as having a subsidiary role in an ongoing
process of social marginalization rather than ascribing them the key
independent role that our study seems to be suggesting, at least
when it comes to suicide,” said lead author Yerko Rojas of the
Swedish Institute for Social Research (SOFI) at Stockholm
University.
Evictions in Sweden peaked in 1994 and were historically low in
2014. They spiked in some Mediterranean countries, like Spain,
during the recent Euro crisis, coauthor Sten-Ake Stenberg added.
The rate and speed of evictions varies by country and over time,
Stenberg said.
The researchers identified all cases in which a landlord, usually,
had applied between 2009 and 2012 for an eviction order to be
executed by the Swedish Enforcement Authority.
They compared to the roughly 23,000 individuals affected by the
evictions to a random sample of more than 770,000 Swedes age 16 and
over in the general population.
Data on cause of death was only available for 2013. There were 195
suicides that year, including 41 in the eviction group and 154 in
the comparison group.
Those who had lost their legal right to the dwelling, and where the
landlord had applied for the eviction to be executed, were
approximately nine times more likely to commit suicide than others.
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When accounting for other factors like unemployment, substance
abuse, mood disorders, education and schizophrenia, suicide was
still four times more likely in the eviction group, the researchers
reported in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.
It is important to be cautious about drawing wide-ranging
conclusions on the basis of the size of this effect, or on the basis
of any other aspect of the study, Rojas said.
“Having said that, I believe it is very concerning that the
suicidogenic effect that seems to be related to the eviction
process, according to our study, has hitherto tended to be
neglected,” he said.
“We believe that an eviction can be understood as a very traumatic
rejection, that is, as an exquisitely shameful experience in which
one’s most basic human needs are denied,” Rojas told Reuters Health
by email. “Merely the strain that comes with a threat of an eviction
has been suggested to be sufficiently powerful for the individual to
feel that it is unbearable, hence, the suicidal act.”
This is still speculation, though, he added.
“We need to focus both on trying to prevent people from losing their
homes and on helping those who have already lost them if one wants
take our results seriously,” he said.
Professionals and others who interact with individuals who are in
the process of losing their homes may have an important role to
play, he said.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1HHDAMT Journal of Epidemiology and Community
Health, online November 4, 2015.
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