Trends in suicide rates and the case-fatality of pesticide self-poisoning in an agricultural county in china, 2009 to 2014

•The annual suicide rates in a typical agricultural county of china remained steady from 2009 to 2014, even though female suicide rates had declined prominently by 20.4% per year.•Pesticide self-poisoning remained the most common method of suicidal acts in the county and nearly 70% of suicides involved pesticide ingestion, which indicated that restriction of pesticide is a critical target of suicide prevention in rural China.•There were positive or marginally positive correlations between suicide rates and case-fatality of suicidal acts in different groups by gender and suicide method. The reduction in the case-fatality of pesticide self-poisoning is one of the important suicide prevention strategies.