Abstract
Although a few studies investigated the impact of stock market fluctuations on population health, the question of whether stock market fluctuations have an impact on self-harm in children and adolescents remain unanswered. This study therefore investigated the association between stock market fluctuations and self-harm among children and adolescents in Hong Kong. Daily self-harm attendance records were retrieved from all 18 local Accident and Emergency Departments (AED) from 2001 to 2012. 4931 children and adolescents who committed self-harm were included. The results indicated positive correlation between daily change in stock market index, Hang Seng Index (∇HSI, per 300 points), and daily self-harm incident risk of children and adolescents, without time lag between the two. The incident risk ratio for ∇HSI was 1.09 (p = 0.0339) in children and 1.06 (p = 0.0246) in adolescents. Importantly, non-trading days were found to impose significant protective effect in both groups against self-harm risk. Our results showed that stock market fluctuations were related to self-harm behaviors in children and adolescents. Parents and professionals should be educated about the potential harm of stock market fluctuations and the importance of effective parenting in reducing self-harm among children and adolescents.
Highlights
Self-harm, defined in this study as intentionally hurting one’s body or body tissue with or without suicidal intent [1], is one of the leading causes of morbidity among young people [2,3]
The empirical results showed that stock market fluctuations were significantly associated with the self-harm behaviors in children and adolescents
Stock market fluctuations can be contributed by various factors including those related to the intrinsic business performance and balance between supply and demand of individual stock companies, and external factors related to government policies and global economic environment [39]
Summary
Self-harm, defined in this study as intentionally hurting one’s body or body tissue with or without suicidal intent [1], is one of the leading causes of morbidity among young people [2,3]. In Hong Kong, 32.7% of secondary one students attempted at least one type of self-harm [5], which is comparable to the alarming self-harm rate of 12–37% in the United States [6,7,8]. To better tackle this worldwide public health challenge, apart from analyses at the individual and family level, it would be important to identify risk factors at the system level. Previous research found that stock market fluctuations had significant influences on population health [9,10].
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