Suicide in Asia and the Near East

Suicide in Asia and the Near East, edited by Lee A. Headley, is a pioneering cross-cultural investigation that widens the suicide research lens far beyond the familiar Western profile. Built over eleven years of fieldwork and collaboration with psychiatrists, psychologists, sociologists, and public-health officials across Asia and the Near East, the volume assembles scarce, often inaccessible national findings into a single, rigorous resource. Headley foregrounds methodological transparency—acknowledging uneven statistical infrastructures, reporting gaps, and language barriers—while insisting on cultural specificity rather than facile comparison. The result is a data-rich, context-attentive mapping of suicidal behavior that interrogates received wisdom about gender, age, means, and intent across vastly different legal, social, and religious terrains.

What distinguishes this collection is its integrated design: epidemiological snapshots are consistently read alongside geography, political history, economic conditions, family structure, and—crucially—religious frameworks from Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, and Taoism to multiple Islamic traditions. Contributors assess how prohibitions, stigma, and institutional responses shape both official counts and lived experience, clarifying why underreporting is patterned rather than incidental. By situating national statistics within deep cultural analysis, Suicide in Asia and the Near East offers researchers, clinicians, and policymakers a rare, comparative evidence base for prevention strategies that travel poorly when stripped of context. It is essential reading for anyone serious about global mental health, demography, or the cultural sociology of life-threatening behavior.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1983.