The Monetary Value of Human Lives Lost to Suicide in the African Continent: Beating the African War Drums

Abstract

Background: Suicide is an important public health problem in the African continent whose economic burden remains largely unknown. This study estimated the monetary value of human lives lost due to suicide in the African continent in 2017. Methods: The human capital approach was applied to monetarily value the years of life lost due to premature mortality from suicide deaths (SD) among 54 African countries. A 3% discount rate was used to convert future losses into their present values. The sensitivity of monetary value of human lives lost to changes in discount rate and average life expectancy was tested. Results: The 75,505 human lives lost from suicide had a grand total monetary value of International Dollars (Int$) 6,989,963,325; and an average present value of Int$ 92,576 per SD. About 31.1% of the total monetary value of SD was borne by high-income and upper-middle-income countries (Group 1); 54.4% by lower-middle-income countries (Group 2); and 14.5% by low-income countries (Group 3). The average monetary value per human life lost from SD was Int$ 234,244 for Group 1, Int$ 109,545 for Group 2 and Int$ 32,223 for Group 3. Conclusions: Evidence shows that suicide imposes a substantive economic burden on African economies. The evidence reinforces the case for increased investments to ensure universal coverage of promotive, preventive, curative and rehabilitative mental health services.