FOI Ref: FOI/2021/3158
You asked
Please supply the number of photographers and camera operators who are listed as taking their own lives by suicide over the past 50 years.
Please supply how was photographer or camera operator ranked compared to other occupational groups.
We said
Thank you for your request.
Just to note, we are responsible for producing mortality statistics for England and Wales, this is driven by information collected from the death certificate at death registration. Northern Ireland Statistical Research Agency (NISRA) and National Records Scotland (NRS) are responsible for collation of their mortality statistics.
We have produced ad hoc analysis on Suicide by occupation, England and Wales, 2011 to 2020 registrations. These datasets provide an insight into suicides by different occupational groups.
Data on occupation is coded using the Standard Occupation Classification (SOC 2010). In all, there are 9 major groups of occupations (for example, skilled trades occupations); 25 sub-major groups (for example, skilled construction and building trades); 90 minor groups (for example, building finishing trades); and more than 350 individual occupations (for example, painters and decorators). Full lists of occupations used in the analysis are reported in the accompanying data tables, and descriptions of these can be found in ONS Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) Hierarchy. The report is structured so that it describes larger categories of occupations before moving on to describe risk in specific occupations.
There are multiple occupation groups codes attributed to professions:
- In table 2 you will find a breakdown of suicides for sub-major occupation groups by sex, culture, media and sports occupations.
- Table 3 contains suicides for minor occupation groups by sex, artistic, literary and media occupations
Table 4 contains individual figures for photographers, audio-visual and broadcasting equipment operators (3417) on row 162. This occupation can also be compared to other occupations from this dataset.
Unfortunately, we do not hold detailed analysis on photographer suicides prior to 2011. We may be able to produce this as a bespoke request for you. 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, where appropriate). Such enquiries would fall outside of the Freedom of Information regime and can be made to: Health.Data@ons.gov.uk. Please do get in touch if you would like further information on this bespoke service.