© WHO / Simon Lim

Limiting access to means of suicide is a universal evidence-based intervention for suicide prevention. Depending on the country, this may mean banning acutely toxic highly hazardous pesticides, restricting firearms, installing barriers in places where suicides are known to occur, limiting access to ligature points or taking other measures.

Most people who engage in suicidal behaviour experience ambivalence about living or dying, and many suicides are a response to acute stressors. Making lethal means of suicide less easily available gives persons in distress time for acute crises to pass before taking fatal action.

Effective means restriction should focus on methods that cause most deaths and/or have a high case fatality (the most lethal means).

Restricting access to highly hazardous pesticides used for self-poisoning

Pesticides are estimated to account for a fifth of all suicides globally. WHO advocates national bans of highly hazardous pesticides as a cost-effective intervention for reducing suicide mortality in countries where pesticides are a common means of self-harm and suicide.

Removing highly hazardous pesticides from agricultural practice and improving the clinical management of pesticide ingestion reduces the number of people who die, regardless of their level of intent.

Restricting access to pesticides requires multisectoral collaboration between all relevant stakeholders, including ministries of health, agriculture, regulators and registrars, as well as community leaders. The same principle of a multisectoral national approach applies to other means of suicide (e.g. the transport sector and the need for barriers).

WHO, in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, jointly published a guidance document on the use of pesticide regulation to prevent suicide, targeting governments, particularly agricultural and health authorities, and also a resource for pesticide registrars and regulators, who are often responsible for implementing national policy bans. Further guidance on regulatory action to phase out the use of highly hazardous pesticides can be found in the FAO Pesticide registration toolkit.