Lawrence R. Berger

Suicides and pesticides in Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka has one of the highest rates of suicide in the world (29 per 100,000 population in 1980). Suicides are especially frequent among young adults, both male and female. Compared to the US, the suicide rate for males ages 15 to 24 years in Sri Lanka is nearly four times greater; the female rate nearly 13 times greater. The most common mode of suicide is ingestion of liquid pesticides.

Consumer product hazards: setting priorities for research and regulatory action.

Consumer products account for 6.8 million injuries per year. The current method of prioritizing regulation of consumer products and prevention of related injuries is the Hazard Index, developed by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. This Index, however, is based on an arbitrary weighting scale and fails to include any estimate of a denominator for injuries. A new Index, the Product Injury Index, based on an objective cost-based weighting procedure, and incorporating an injury ratio is proposed and applied to existing data. The relative rankings on the two scales are compared, and the advantages of the new scale are discussed.