Supporting others: How prosocial behaviour reduces deaths of despair

Kelsey J. O’Connor, Chiara Peroni, Francesco Sarracino, Giulia Slater, Fengyu Wu

Abstract

Deaths of despair are preventable deaths due to suicide, alcohol abuse, and drug overdose. Together, they represent a form of ill-being akin to extreme unhappiness. The term was introduced to describe troubling trends in the United States, while little was known about global patterns. However, rising feelings of distress around the world suggested this trend was not confined to the US. Indeed, our data show that Slovenia, not the US, had the highest rate of deaths of despair in 2019, although the US did experience the greatest increase over the period 2000 to 2019.

In this chapter, we document the levels of deaths of despair around the world using the latest available data, show how these levels have changed over time, and provide an initial analysis of the factors that explain the rise or fall of deaths of despair within countries over time. We focus particularly on prosocial behaviour – donating, volunteering, and helping strangers – as a factor that could reduce deaths of despair.

The World Happiness Report is published by the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford, in partnership with Gallup, the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and an independent editorial board.

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