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Suicide Remains Biggest Cause of Death Among Young People

Statues discouraging people trying to jump to their deaths in the Han River are placed in Seoul's Mapo Bridge in the capital.

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Korea still has the most suicides in the OECD and their numbers are rising despite government efforts to reduce them.

According to Statistics Korea's 2019 data on causes of death released Tuesday, the country's suicide rate stood at 26.9 per 100,000 people last year, up 0.9 percent from the year before.

The rate fell from 28.5 in 2013 to 24.3 in 2017 but then rose again.

Suicide deaths increased from 12,463 in 2017 to 13,799 people last year or a daily average of 38. That made suicide was the country's fifth leading cause of death in all age groups but the leading cause among young people.

Meanwhile, the mortality rate of Alzheimer's disease, which accounts for the largest proportion of dementia cases, rose from the ninth leading cause of death or 12 per 100,000 in 2018 to seventh or 13.1 last year as the population aged.

For all kinds of dementia including Alzheimer's the death rate was 20.2 in 2019, nearly double the 10 years earlier of 11.8. The death rate among women was 28.2, 2.3 times higher than the rate among men.

Cancer remained the leading cause of death with a mortality rate of 158.2 in 2019, up 2.5 percent from the previous year.

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