Scandanavia and suicide

I am not sure exactly where I got the idea, but I have long thought that although Scandanavian countries do well on nearly every quality of life metric, they are afflicted with abnormally high suicide rates. But I just fact-checked this—as I occasionally do when I think I know something but have forgotten where I learned it—and apparently I was wrong.

Here is what the most recent World Health Organization stats have:

For age-standardized suicide rates in 2016, the country rankings for prevalence of suicide (lower is worse) are: Finland 32, Sweden 51, Norway 74, Denmark 89. (For comparison, Guyana is 1, the US is 34, and Barbados is 183.)

For crude rates from 1985-2017, the rankings are: Finland 25, Sweden 38, Norway 40. For comparison, Greenland is 1, the US is 28, and Grenada ties with a bunch of small countries at 107.

I need to keep up better with Phil Zuckerman.