Fig. 1

Monthly suicide and circulatory system disease-related deaths in five countries. Legend: Shown are data for three northern hemisphere (left panels: England & Wales, South Korea, United States) and two southern hemisphere (right panels: Australia, Brazil) countries as a percentage of January deaths in each year for each cause. Shown are means (averaged over years sampled) ± standard deviations. These data illustrate that suicide numbers and deaths from circulatory system-related disease increase and decrease, respectively, in spring-summer periods, with inverse patterns for each mortality cause occurring in fall-winter periods. Southern hemisphere temporal patterns are inverted versus northern hemisphere patterns but cross-correlation valences are the same in both hemispheres