Waving a son or daughter off to university has always been an anxious time, but perhaps even more so this year after media reports of a spate of suicides at the University of Bristol. Reports say that 11 people have taken their lives at the university, though some of those cases have yet to go before the coroner.
While these figures do show a “cluster” of suicides or apparent suicides among Bristol students, they can be easily misinterpreted. According to recent figures from the Office for National Statistics, the suicide rate among students in the United Kingdom is lower than among young people of a similar age in the general population. But universities are still deeply concerned by the cluster of such deaths in the last two years.
When it comes to expertise on this subject, Bristol University is well placed: David Gunnell, professor of epidemiology at the university, is a world expert on suicide prevention.