Violent acts including suicide, homicide and sexual assaults are increasing faster in the eastern Mediterranean region than in any other in the world, adding to the suffering of populations experiencing conflict and war.
According to a huge body of work from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington in Seattle, deaths due to self-harm increased by 100% to 30,000 in the past 25 years in the region, and those from interpersonal violence were up 152% to 35,000.
In other parts of the world during the same period, the number of deaths from suicide increased 19% and interpersonal violence by 12%.
“Intractable and endemic violence is creating a lost generation of children and young adults,” said Dr Ali Mokdad, lead author of the study (pdf) and director for Middle Eastern Initiatives at the IHME. “The future of the Middle East is grim unless we can find a way to bring stability to the region.”
The data collection shows that war and violence were the leading causes of death in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya in 2015.
The figures for mental health disorders, perhaps unsurprisingly, have also climbed. Depression and anxiety were the most common mental conditions, according to the study. Both affect women more than men. The authors say that the number of suicides are probably under-reported, because of cultural, social and legal pressures.
The research also showed that people in the region are suffering from two types of malnutrition – insufficient food and also the wrong sort of nourishment. Alongside children experiencing poor growth there are others who are obese. The prevalence of obesity increased by 37% between 1980 and 2015. One in five adults are obese in the region, and Qatar and Kuwait have the highest prevalence among adults and children.
Progress on child survival remains uneven, the study says. Total mortality for children under the age of five decreased at a slower rate than globally, with about 80% of the region’s under-five deaths occurring in just six countries out of the 22 surveyed: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Yemen.
The 15 papers from the IHME comprise an edition of the International Journal of Public Health, and cover many aspects of mortality and ill health in the eastern Mediterranean region.