7 ms·

The focus on suicide methods feels of questionable utility, surely the suicide motivations are where it's at.

francisofascii 6y ago
Since suicides can often be impulsive and not premeditated, if you can reduce the access to the method, you can reduce the number suicides.
kayodelycaon 6y ago
Motivation is harder to categorize and collect. It also assumes someone in investigating the root cause and recording it.
perardi 6y ago
Is it of questionable utility? I don't think it's a waste to look at the data and see if certain methods of suicide really stand out. It doesn't seem unreasonable to see if (this is a gross way to phrase it but here we go) easy and efficient methods of suicide are associated with more suicides. My gut instinct would say that having easy access to handguns would be associated with more suicides, as it's (relatively) more reliable than an intentional drug overdose. Does the data here reflect that? I am not a statistician, but what's shown actually makes me question my priors. The US has a huge difference in suicide by gun rates, but the overall suicide rate isn't all that different from European countries. And, this actually surprised me, the male-to-female suicide ratio in the US isn't much different than other countries, which really makes me question my prior that "guys have handguns and thus have an easier way to commit suicide".
- losvedir 6y ago
  Exactly. It's obvious that suicide by gun is going to be correlated to gun ownership, but that's not valuable information at all. The much more interesting question of whether suicide is correlated to gun ownership was (for me) striking in its absence. I guess there's no good data for it.
  - James_Henry 6y ago
    There's ok data. Take a look at this paper https://mason.gmu.edu/~atabarro/BriggsTabarrokFirearmsSuicide.pdf https://mason.gmu.edu/~atabarro/BriggsTabarrokFirearmsSuicid... and this page from our world in data https://ourworldindata.org/suicide#gun-prevalence https://ourworldindata.org/suicide#gun-prevalence Also of interest to me is how regulating alcohol and other drug use influences suicide. Because of the failures of the war on drugs and prohibition, this doesn't seem to be a very popular topic of study, but I reckon that making alcohol harder to get would decrease the number of suicides.
simion314 6y ago
There is the hypotheses that rush suicides can happen when your home has a gun or some quick way of ending your life. There will be hard to study this theories as long as an industry is involved and politics. I have no idea how can you use statistics from other countries and get the correct conclusions, we probably need the data from people that canceled their suicide and compare the number of gun owners and non gun owners.
dasudasu 6y ago
It has huge policy implications. Some people push gun controls because of it, or install fences at bridges and subway stations that can cost in the billion dollar range.
- fulafel 6y ago
  But isn't this all the more reason to research the causes and direct the policy measures there?
  - GaryNumanVevo 6y ago
    In all fairness, it's vastly easier to put up a fence over a bridge or regulate firearm purchases than fix systemic social and economic issues wholesale.
    - fulafel 6y ago
      I'm not sure it is - we know how to eg address poverty with income transfers and increase availability of free mental health services, and how to raise the temporary revenue for it (temporary because it pays for itself)
      - stallmanite 6y ago
        You’re 100% correct. These things don’t happen because apparently those who can make it happen don’t actually want that outcome.
pjc50 6y ago
In practice, this makes a noticeable difference; it's why you can't buy paracetamol in significant quantities in the UK, why the suicide rate fell when the UK switched from toxic coal gas to natural gas, and so on. Suicide motivation is usually understood as "depression", but antidepressants aren't entirely reliable in this case. It's very hard to reach inside someone's head unless they're willing to tell you. Neither of the two people I knew who killed themselves left notes. Both were on antidepressants.
watwut 6y ago
For example, men were more likely to shot themselves and women were more likely to poison themselves. Also, women were less likely to die from suicide, but more likely to attempt it. The means matter.
vmchale 6y ago
Well the pie chart with possible mental illnesses had some stuff in that direction.
DanBC 6y ago
Suicide prevention focuses on a package of measures. These include kinder fairer societies as a long term measure. I don't know anyone working in suicide prevention in England who isn't deeply aware of the wider determinants of mental ill health. (And I know a lot of people working in suicide prevention). But the package of measures also includes "preventing access to means and methods". This is because we know it makes a difference. We have some natural experiments to show this: changing the domestic supply of gas from coal gas to natural gas caused a substantial decline in deaths: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC478945/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC478945/ Changing cars to have catalytic convertors also caused a decline in deaths. People get caught up on this. They say "merely making it harder to buy paracetamol isn't addressing the root causes, you need to do that". They're right, but they're missing the point that this is supposed to be a package of measures that also looks at why people attempt suicide.
- stallmanite 6y ago
  Isn’t it cruelty on top of cruelty to not address how unkind and unfair our society is and then attempt to block people’s only escape route? If the world isn’t going to become less cruel who are we to prevent individuals from escaping it?
renewiltord 6y ago
Well, saying that without knowing the impact on outcomes doesn't make sense. Anyway, the focus usually reflects org structure. Solutions match org structure. If you make a Suicide Reduction Squad, they will not be able to "ensure that all children have education" to reduce suicide, they can only chase methods. After all, it's the Education Increase Squad that makes sure children have education.

Since suicides can often be impulsive and not premeditated, if you can reduce the access to the method, you can reduce the number suicides.

kayodelycaon 6y ago

Motivation is harder to categorize and collect. It also assumes someone in investigating the root cause and recording it.

perardi 6y ago

Is it of questionable utility? I don't think it's a waste to look at the data and see if certain methods of suicide really stand out. It doesn't seem unreasonable to see if (this is a gross way to phrase it but here we go) easy and efficient methods of suicide are associated with more suicides. My gut instinct would say that having easy access to handguns would be associated with more suicides, as it's (relatively) more reliable than an intentional drug overdose. Does the data here reflect that? I am not a statistician, but what's shown actually makes me question my priors. The US has a huge difference in suicide by gun rates, but the overall suicide rate isn't all that different from European countries. And, this actually surprised me, the male-to-female suicide ratio in the US isn't much different than other countries, which really makes me question my prior that "guys have handguns and thus have an easier way to commit suicide".

losvedir 6y ago
Exactly. It's obvious that suicide by gun is going to be correlated to gun ownership, but that's not valuable information at all. The much more interesting question of whether suicide is correlated to gun ownership was (for me) striking in its absence. I guess there's no good data for it.
- James_Henry 6y ago
  There's ok data. Take a look at this paper https://mason.gmu.edu/~atabarro/BriggsTabarrokFirearmsSuicide.pdf https://mason.gmu.edu/~atabarro/BriggsTabarrokFirearmsSuicid... and this page from our world in data https://ourworldindata.org/suicide#gun-prevalence https://ourworldindata.org/suicide#gun-prevalence Also of interest to me is how regulating alcohol and other drug use influences suicide. Because of the failures of the war on drugs and prohibition, this doesn't seem to be a very popular topic of study, but I reckon that making alcohol harder to get would decrease the number of suicides.

simion314 6y ago

There is the hypotheses that rush suicides can happen when your home has a gun or some quick way of ending your life. There will be hard to study this theories as long as an industry is involved and politics. I have no idea how can you use statistics from other countries and get the correct conclusions, we probably need the data from people that canceled their suicide and compare the number of gun owners and non gun owners.

dasudasu 6y ago

It has huge policy implications. Some people push gun controls because of it, or install fences at bridges and subway stations that can cost in the billion dollar range.

fulafel 6y ago
But isn't this all the more reason to research the causes and direct the policy measures there?
- GaryNumanVevo 6y ago
  In all fairness, it's vastly easier to put up a fence over a bridge or regulate firearm purchases than fix systemic social and economic issues wholesale.
  - fulafel 6y ago
    I'm not sure it is - we know how to eg address poverty with income transfers and increase availability of free mental health services, and how to raise the temporary revenue for it (temporary because it pays for itself)
    - stallmanite 6y ago
      You’re 100% correct. These things don’t happen because apparently those who can make it happen don’t actually want that outcome.

pjc50 6y ago

In practice, this makes a noticeable difference; it's why you can't buy paracetamol in significant quantities in the UK, why the suicide rate fell when the UK switched from toxic coal gas to natural gas, and so on. Suicide motivation is usually understood as "depression", but antidepressants aren't entirely reliable in this case. It's very hard to reach inside someone's head unless they're willing to tell you. Neither of the two people I knew who killed themselves left notes. Both were on antidepressants.

watwut 6y ago

For example, men were more likely to shot themselves and women were more likely to poison themselves. Also, women were less likely to die from suicide, but more likely to attempt it. The means matter.

vmchale 6y ago

Well the pie chart with possible mental illnesses had some stuff in that direction.

DanBC 6y ago

Suicide prevention focuses on a package of measures. These include kinder fairer societies as a long term measure. I don't know anyone working in suicide prevention in England who isn't deeply aware of the wider determinants of mental ill health. (And I know a lot of people working in suicide prevention). But the package of measures also includes "preventing access to means and methods". This is because we know it makes a difference. We have some natural experiments to show this: changing the domestic supply of gas from coal gas to natural gas caused a substantial decline in deaths: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC478945/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC478945/ Changing cars to have catalytic convertors also caused a decline in deaths. People get caught up on this. They say "merely making it harder to buy paracetamol isn't addressing the root causes, you need to do that". They're right, but they're missing the point that this is supposed to be a package of measures that also looks at why people attempt suicide.

stallmanite 6y ago
Isn’t it cruelty on top of cruelty to not address how unkind and unfair our society is and then attempt to block people’s only escape route? If the world isn’t going to become less cruel who are we to prevent individuals from escaping it?

renewiltord 6y ago

Well, saying that without knowing the impact on outcomes doesn't make sense. Anyway, the focus usually reflects org structure. Solutions match org structure. If you make a Suicide Reduction Squad, they will not be able to "ensure that all children have education" to reduce suicide, they can only chase methods. After all, it's the Education Increase Squad that makes sure children have education.