FOI reference: FOI-2025-3316
You asked
I am writing under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to request any available data on registered suicides among slaughterhouse or abattoir workers in the UK from 2010 to 2024. I would also like to request the suicide rates among those working in meat processing alongside Standardised Mortality Ratios (SMRs) or relative suicide risk for slaughterhouse workers versus the general working population, if available.
Specifically, I request:
- Number of registered suicides per year.
- Breakdown by age group, gender, and region, if available.
- If slaughter house specific data is not available, please provide equivalent data for Food, Drink and Tobacco Process Operatives (SOC 8121) or the closest related category.
We said
Thank you for your requests.
We are responsible for the production of mortality statistics for England and Wales. National Records Scotland (NRS) and Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) are responsible for statistics pertaining to Scotland and Northern Ireland. They can be contacted at foi@nrscotland.gov.uk and info@nisra.gov.uk respectively.
Our death registration data has been coded to SOC2000 for the deaths registered in 2010, SOC2010 for deaths registered between 2011 and 2022 and SOC2020 from 2023 on. In each version the SOC code or food, drink and tobacco process operatives is 8111. We do not hold more granular information on the occupation of the deceased, so we are unable to break the data down further and identify specific industries such as slaughterhouses and abattoirs.
Table 4 in the user requested dataset Suicides by occupation, England and Wales, death registered in each year 2011 to 2021 shows the number of suicides by occupation which includes figures for SOC code 8111 for deaths registered between 2011 and 2021.
Tables 7 and 8 in the user requested dataset Suicide by occupation in England and Wales: 2020 to 2022 - Office for National Statistics shows the number of suicides by occupation which includes figures for SOC code 8111 for deaths registered from 2020 to 2022.
Tables 7 and 8 in the user requested dataset Suicide by occupation in England and Wales: 2023 and 2024, provisional - Office for National Statistics shows the number of suicides by occupation which includes figures for SOC code 8111 for deaths registered in 2023 and 2024. Please not that at the time of publication, data for 2024 was provisional.
The accompanying table provides the number of deaths due to suicide, for SOC code 8111, deaths registered in each year 2022 to 2024.
Please note that age-standardised rates are not calculated where there are fewer than 10 deaths in a cell and crude rates are not calculated when there are fewer than 3 deaths in a cell. More information can be found in our User Guide to Mortality Statistics.
All deaths due to suicide are referred to a coroner. This means that we do not get informed of these deaths until the coroner has reached a verdict and registered the death meaning the registration is delayed. More information on registration delays can be found on our website.
We have not previously produced these figures for deaths registered in 2010. However, we could create a custom output. Information on the number of suicides by age group, sex and region, for deaths registered in each year 2010 to 2024, along with other special extracts and tabulations of mortality data for England and Wales are available to order, subject to legal frameworks, disclosure control, resources and agreements of costs. Please contact Health.Data@ons.gov.uk for more information on this service.