Anomie or imitation? The Werther effect of celebrity suicides on suicide rates in 34 OECD countries, 1960–2014

Suicide mortality rates in Japan before and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic era

Statistical analyses from Japan reported increasing suicides in 2020, first in the world, proving the severity of the public health crisis during the COVID-19 pandemic; however, so far, international suicides have not been shown to be objectively increasing at population level. Followed studies reported the existence of a substantial heterogeneity of suicides among subgroups and time-lag impacts. Against public health crisis in Japan, policymakers, psychiatrists and public health personnel should prioritize improving suicide prevention programs following evidence-based policymaking. Understanding how/what factors relate to the COVID-19 pandemic and what other factors have shaped the increasing suicide numbers since 2020 through objectively well-controlled/fine-grained analyses of high-quality longitudinal/cross-sectional data at the individual, regional, and national levels is important for identifying the reasons for the recent trend. For this purpose, this study examined suicide statistics, statistical analysis methods, and their interpretations. Recent analyses suggest an increased suicide risk among females <50 years and males <30 years in 2020-2022. Notably, time-series analyses revealed that adolescent suicides began increasing before the pandemic, while working-age female suicides sharply increased synchronously with the pandemic outbreak. Causality analyses suggest that social issues facing Japan and recent global psychosocial and socioeconomic transformations are risk factors for suicide in high-risk groups. Finally, this report demonstrates the importance of providing appropriate support based on an objective understanding of individuals who are at risk for suicide, without being bound by traditional established knowledges.

Temporal Fluctuations of Suicide Mortality in Japan from 2009 to 2023 Using Government Databases

In Japan, suicide mortalities consistently decreased before the COVID-19 pandemic (from 2009 to 2019) but, conversely, increased after the pandemic outbreak from 2020 to 2022. To provide up-to-date suicide statistics in Japan, this study determined the temporal fluctuations of standardized suicide mortalities (SMRs), disaggregated by sex and age, by joinpoint regression analysis using the government suicide database, named the "Basic Data on Suicide in Region". From January 2009 to December 2023, three temporal fluctuation patterns of SMRs pertaining to working age and older adults were detected, such as attenuations of decreasing trends before the COVID-19 pandemic (from around the mid-2010s), a sharply increasing trend that coincided with the pandemic outbreak, and gradually decreased during the pandemic, but no changes at the end of the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, the SMRs of working-age females sharply increased concurrently with the pandemic outbreak, whereas those of males did not change. However, before the pandemic, decreasing trends of the SMRs of working-age males diminished in the mid-2010s, but those of females consistently decreased. The SMRs of working-age males indicated non-significant but sharply increasing trends in early 2022, a trend that was not observed for females. In contrast to working-age adults, the SMRs of adolescents already began to increase in the mid-2010s and also indicated consistently increasing trends between the periods during and after the pandemic. These results suggest, contrary to our expectations, that the impacts of both the outbreak and end of the COVID-19 pandemic were limited regarding the increase in SMRs from 2020. Therefore, when revising suicide prevention programs in the post-COVID-19 era, it should be noted that focusing on pandemic-associated factors alone is not sufficient.

Suicide by sodium nitrite poisoning: Findings from the National Violent Death Reporting System, 2018-2020

OBJECTIVES

Suicide by sodium nitrite may be an emerging trend in the United States. Our mixed-methods study aims to: (1) describe the rates of suicides secondary to sodium nitrite self-poisoning in the United States between 2018 and 2020 and (2) characterize the use of sodium nitrite as a suicide method.

METHODS

Using NVDRS data, descriptive statistics, population-based incident rates/year and incidence estimates across 50 states were calculated. An inductive thematic analysis characterized the use of sodium nitrite as a suicide method on review of medical examiner and law enforcement reports.

RESULTS

260 incidents were identified as suicides secondary to self-poisoning with sodium nitrite/nitrate across 37 states and 1 territory-69% of which occurred in 2020. The typical victim was a white male student with a known depressive disorder and a history of suicidal thoughts (n = 120). The annual suicide rate using sodium nitrite increased from 0.01-0.09/100,000 person-years over the three-year period. Online forums were used to share knowledge on the procurement and preparation of sodium nitrite poisoning.

CONCLUSIONS

Sodium nitrite self-poisoning is an increasingly used planned suicide method among young people. Further studies are required to identify the impact of means safety interventions on the incidence of sodium nitrite self-poisoning incidents.

Werther or Papageno? Examining the effects of news reports of celebrity suicide versus non-celebrity peer suicide on intentions to seek help among vulnerable young adults

INTRODUCTION

A large body of literature has examined the Werther effect following news reports of suicide, yet much less attention has been paid to the protective Papageno effect. This research explored the causal relationships between news reports of real celebrity suicides (e.g., pop-rock star Chester Bennington) and real non-celebrity "peer" suicides (e.g., college student Madison Holleran) and intentions to seek help.

METHODS

Two survey experiments confirmed successful experimental manipulation (N = 280) and tested behavioral theory, clinical indicators, and intentions to seek help (N = 641) in samples of college students (18-25).

RESULTS

Participants were motivated to seek help if they believed it could lead to positive outcomes, yet this was less likely among participants with depression. Exposure to news reports of non-celebrity suicides had a small positive effect on help-seeking intentions. Among participants with depression, news reports of celebrity suicides had a small positive effect on intentions.

CONCLUSIONS

This research could not establish Werther effects for either of the news reports. Exposure to news reports of non-celebrity suicides had a small positive effect on intentions overall, but young adults with higher levels of depression were slightly more motivated to seek help after viewing news reports of celebrity suicides.

The Werther effect following the suicides of three korean celebrities (2017-2018): an ecological time-series study

BACKGROUND

The suicide rate in Korea was the highest among the member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development(OECD) for 2013-2016 and 2018-2020. In korea, suicide was the leading cause of death among individuals aged 10-39, and the second leading cause of death for aged 40-59. Thus, this study aimed to examine the Werther effect of the suicides of three Korean idol singers (Jonghyun: December 18, 2017, Sulli: October 14, 2019, and Hara Gu: November 24, 2019).

METHODS

The study conducted Poisson regression and used the cause-of-death statistics microdata from 2016 to 2020 provided by Statistics Korea. The case periods ranged from the day of the suicide of each celebrity to 10 weeks after. The control periods were all weeks from 2016 to 2020, excluding the case periods.

RESULTS

The suicide rates in Korea significantly increased by 1.21, 1.30, and 1.28 times after the deaths of Jonghyun, Sulli, and Hara Gu, respectively. The Werther effect was more evident in women than men. Suicide rate among individuals aged 10-29 years was greater than those for other age groups.

CONCLUSIONS

This study confirmed that the rate of copycat suicides increased after three celebrity singers in Korea died by suicide. Nevertheless, the rate of suicide after the suicide of the three celebrity singers was lower than those in previous studies in Korea.

Suicide and economic uncertainty: New findings in a global setting

This study extends the previous literature on the association between country-level economic uncertainty and suicide rate to 141 countries by introducing the World Uncertainty Index. We first examine the role of economic uncertainty on the suicide rates in a global setting for the period 2000-2019 and then analyze if the association varied across different income groups. Our primary findings suggest that a rise in economic uncertainty is related to an increased suicide rate. According to the estimates based on various income levels, higher economic uncertainty is associated with increased suicide risk in high-income countries. For middle- and low-income countries, we find no such impact. Overall, we conclude that contemporaneous and lagged economic uncertainty is a concern for the increased risk of suicide, especially in high-income countries. The results highlight the need for proactive suicide-prevention strategies in uncertain times.

Police-led real-time surveillance system for suspected suicides in Great Britain

It has become increasingly apparent that rapidly available information about the occurrence of suicides is needed, particularly to support suicide prevention efforts. Concerns about the potential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on vulnerability to suicide highlighted the need for such early data internationally. Here, we set out the nature, current status and content of a real-time suicide monitoring system in Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales), and explore its potential to contribute to timely and targeted suicide prevention initiatives. We also discuss the challenges to successful implementation.

Shifting attitudes toward suicide over time: A latent profile analysis using the Korea National Suicide Survey

Introduction

South Korea has a high suicide rate, and changes in sociodemographic factors can further increase the rate. This study aims to (1) classify participants using the Attitudes toward Suicide Scale (ATTS) through latent profile analysis (LPA), (2) identify and compare the associations between sociodemographic factors with the ATTS in two survey years (2013, 2018), and (3) determine the moderating effect of survey year.

Methods

Six sub-factors of the ATTS were used for LPA with a total of 2,973 participants. Sociodemographic characteristics were compared between groups, and multinomial logistic regression was conducted for each survey year. A moderation analysis was conducted with the survey year as moderator.

Results

LPA identified three groups of attitudes toward suicide: incomprehensible (10.3%), mixed (52.8%), and permissive (36.9%). The proportion of permissive attitudes increased from 2013 (32.3%) to 2018 (41.7%). Participants reporting suicidal behavior were more likely to be in the mixed and permissive groups than the incomprehensible group in both years. People reporting no religious beliefs were associated with the permissive group in the two survey years. The influence of education and income levels on groups differed by survey year.

Discussion

There were significant changes between 2013 and 2018 in attitudes toward suicide in the Korean population.

Detecting suicide risk using knowledge-aware natural language processing and counseling service data

RATIONALE

Detecting users at risk of suicide in text-based counseling services is essential to ensure that at-risk individuals are flagged and prioritized.

OBJECTIVE

The objective of this study is to develop a domain knowledge-aware risk assessment (KARA) model to improve our ability of suicide detection in online counseling systems.

METHODS

We obtained the largest known de-identified dataset from an emotional support system established in Hong Kong, comprising 5682 Cantonese conversations between help-seekers and counselors. Of those, 682 conversations disclosed crisis intentions of suicide. We constructed a suicide-knowledge graph, representing suicide-related domain knowledge as a computer-processible graph. Such knowledge graph was embedded into a deep learning model to improve its ability to identify help-seekers in crisis. As the baseline, a standard NLP model was applied to the same task. 80% of the study samples were randomly sampled to train model parameters. The remaining 20% were used for model validation. Evaluation metrics including precision, recall, and c-statistic were reported.

RESULTS

Both KARA and the baseline achieved high precision (0.984 and 0.951, shown in Table 2) and high recall (0.942 and 0.947) towards non-crisis cases. For crisis cases, however, KARA model achieved a much higher recall than the baseline (0.870 vs 0.791). The c-statistics of KARA and the baseline were 0.815 and 0.760, respectively.

CONCLUSION

KARA significantly outperformed standard NLP models, demonstrating good translational value and clinical relevance.