11 ms·

Suicide has become rarer during the pandemic

123 points by mrtedbear 5y ago

RcouF1uZ4gsC 5y ago
Can’t see because of paywall, but wonder if it broken down by age. I recall seeing reports of school districts that were talking about increased suicide rate among teenagers in certain school districts.
- spillguard 5y ago
  There appears to be contrary data to that as well: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/04/pandemic-suicide-crisis-unsupported-data/618660/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/04/pandemic-... Apologies if you get paywalled.
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  "increased suicide rate among teenagers in certain school districts" - from the phrasing, this sounds like media reporting bias. Usually a combination of reporter being told to "find story on this thing" and multiple comparison bias. e: and I'm downvoted why?
timr 5y ago
Context: this is "surprising" (edit: mods changed title from "Surprisingly, suicide has become rarer during the pandemic") because suicidal ideation (and by some reports, attempts) were dramatically increased during our response to the pandemic. Deaths from alcohol and drug abuse are also up: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2776559 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle... https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/147/3/e2020029280 https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/147/3/e202002... https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6932a1.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6932a1.htm https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4095 https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4095 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33533876/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33533876/ https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/the-implications-of-covid-19-for-mental-health-and-substance-use/ https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/the-imp... On a more anecdotal note, I'm personally close to a therapist, and they're busier with SI patients than ever. They're also overwhelmed with demand, in general, having seen a significant increase in both patients and patients with SI over the course of 2020.
- taneq 5y ago
  So is this more of a "diagnosis of deaths as suicide has become rarer during the pandemic"?
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    I doubt the diagnostic criteria for suicide has changed dramatically during the pandemic. Fascinating seeing how so many people do not want to accept the data as is because it doesn't fit their pre-conceptions.
    - timr 5y ago
      > Fascinating seeing how so many people do not want to accept the data as is because it doesn't fit their pre-conceptions. Not sure exactly what you're implying here, but cherry-picking data to fit pre-conceptions has definitely been an epidemic of its own throughout the Covid situation.
      - watwut 5y ago
        Pretty much every discussion of covid had multiple people claiming that suicides went up so much, that they probably turned lockdowns, masking etc contraproductive. Cause they supposedly drove more people to suicide then saved. The suicides went down thing really goes against what significant part if HN wants to believe.
        timr 5y ago
        > The suicides went down thing really goes against what significant part if HN wants to believe. And I just provided half a dozen links to better research that shows that this "suicides went down thing" is misleading. So yes, let's have a conversation about people cherry-picking the data they'd prefer to believe.
        hvac 5y ago
jjcon 5y ago
I sincerely doubt the tag line, “Financial support from governments may have reduced one potential cause of despair” has absolutely anything to do with it Suicide is rarely about true despair, I would say it is more about loss of purpose. When you are scrounging to get by or have bigger fish to fry than some existential demons, suicide falls to the back of your mind. When there is time to ponder bigger questions it returns.
- CydeWeys 5y ago
  I don't think this is true. A large percentage of suicides are associated with financial ruin, e.g. you're losing your house to foreclosure and about to be homeless. Preventing these situations by financial means would thus prevent said suicides. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/financial-hardship-is-a-top-risk-factor-for-suicide-attempts https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/financial-hardship...
- wgjordan 5y ago
  A cursory glance at empirical research suggests otherwise, that lower socioeconomic status is directly linked to higher suicide rates.
- teachingassist 5y ago
  This comment is romanticised nonsense which is consistently opposed by research. Suicide rates are strongly linked to socioeconomic status. Being in the 1st decile for income gives you a more than double risk than being in the 10th decile (and the risk is still higher among even poorer people). Article: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0917504017300382 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S091750401... Most relevant graph: https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0917504017300382-gr1.jpg https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S09175040173003...
  - Alex3917 5y ago
    > This comment is romanticised nonsense which is consistently opposed by research. Suicide rates fluctuate wildly over time though, so trying to understand suicide by looking at relative rates within a given year is going to give you at best an incomplete picture.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
makomk 5y ago
It's worth bearing in mind that, as I understand it, other countries haven't yet released their suicide numbers for the period of the pandemic during which Japan's suicide rates rose - they apparently publish theirs more promptly than most places for some reason, which is why people have been keeping an eye on Japan as an early warning.
antegamisou 5y ago
Unpaywalled article https://archive.is/06hRj https://archive.is/06hRj
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
bostonpete 5y ago
Has become more common in some communities though... Suicides among Black people doubled during COVID-19 lockdowns, while suicides in white individuals were cut in half during the same period. https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2020-12-17/pandemic-tied-to-higher-suicide-rate-in-blacks-lowered-rate-in-whites-study https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2020-12-17/...
- LudwigNagasena 5y ago
  Is race really a more important factor than wealth? I would like to see dynamics across other demographics.
  - intergalplan 5y ago
    It's super common for the main problem to be "urban living + poor" in these cases (sometimes, just "poor"). If you target interventions on those criteria, rather than color of skin, you'll do a good job of addressing the issue, because skin color wasn't the (primary) acute cause of the problem. The part where it's a race issue is farther up the causality chain, where "urban living + poor" becomes correlated with "black" in the first place. I suspect that the study took place in Maryland is why the effect is so pronounced. I wouldn't be a bit surprised to find that their race-demographics are even more skewed in terms of geographic distribution and SES than is typical nationwide.
    - jeffbee 5y ago
      Isn't suicide anti-correlated with urban living? In California urban counties like San Francisco, Alameda, and Los Angeles are clustered around 7 suicides per 100k, while rural counties like Shasta, Siskiyou, and Lake are 25-30.
      - sokoloff 5y ago
        The median urban San Francisco resident has a significantly higher income than the median Baltimore, MD resident, so if the socioeconomic link to suicide/attempt rate is strong, I could see this being a factor that would significantly confound the urban/suburban/rural split.
hn8788 5y ago
It doesn't say until a few paragraphs in that the study only covers the early months of the pandemic, and it's pretty misleading to focus only on succesful suicide attempts to try and paint things as not that bad. Overdoses, suicide attempts, and child abuse were significantly higher in 2020. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33533876/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33533876/
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  How should I view a falling rate of suicide but rising rate of suicide attempts? I am not sure that it is misleading, but agree it isn't the full picture. Naturally, I think the primary focus should be on decreasing successful suicide attempts, then on decreasing suicide attempts writ large.
  - hn8788 5y ago
    Personally, I would lump suicide attempts and succesful suicides together in cases like this. I don't think it matters whether or not they succeed, just the fact that things are bad enough that they're suicidal means the pandemic was handled poorly. I don't know if the data is available, but increased attempts with a decrease in successes could be because people were stuck at home where someone could find them before it was too late.
    - whimsicalism 5y ago
      I think it definitely matters whether they succeed or not, not much more to say on that other than I disagree and your approach misses important policy changes that could dramatically reduce suicide by reducing the deadliness of attempts (failed attempts make it less likely you will try again). I don't think an increase in suicides a priori means the pandemic is handled poorly if it is the best we could do while stopping the 600k virus deaths from becoming 1.2 mill or whatever.
      - sokoloff 5y ago
        It matters in one obvious substantive way, but there's a valid philosophical question as to whether person A who was depressed enough to attempt and fail at suicide is better or worse off than person B who successfully completed the act. Person A is very likely still depressed and in mental pain. Person B is not. Now, if person A "recovers" and goes on to experience many good years of life, maybe then they're better off, but right now, they may believe that they are worse off than person B.
mrwh 5y ago
I wonder if one mechanism is that the pandemic has affected everyone - some people worse than others of course, but we're all affected, there is this THING that we have in common with everyone else.
- PaulKeeble 5y ago
  Empathy from others is really important. There was a paper today about why chronically ill people kill themselves and the biggest reason is their doctors not believing them and trying to plying them with anti depressants instead of helping them with their real symptoms. It is a consistent thing you see before chronically ill people kill themselves, the belief that no one is going to help them now or ever (they are right by the way there is no one who is going to help them, their situation is likely never going to get better especially in areas with little to no research). With the pandemic you can find someone else going through the same sort of thing, they will have empathy about their shared experience. For most people this level of isolation is temporary however, for the disabled this is their every day and they also on a day to day before the pandemic they didn't have this empathy from anyone, from their family nor their doctors. It is about the best it has ever been for the chronically ill, people for once have some empathy for what they are going through but I suspect it wont last.
  - m0llusk 5y ago
    This is also critical with PTSD in soldiers. It used to be thought that war trauma was the primary factor in veteran PTSD, but ongoing research is revealing that being part of a close group and then losing that contact and trust can have a devastating psychological impact.
    - PaulKeeble 5y ago
      In the past year I have learnt an awful lot about the historic and current maltreatments of a lot of ill people. Medicine is often held on a pedestal as a good example but the reality seems to be they jump to conclusions without good evidence all the time, sometimes they can be found to gaslight patients for decades, ME patients its nearly a century now and covid long haulers are suffering the consequences of that inaction. I have lost a lot of respect for doctors and medical research over the past few years. I suspect pretty much every "mental health" issue will at some point finally be tracked to a physical condition, potentially something we could have been treating decades beforehand if they had bothered to look. I don't know what underpins PTSD, I just know I wouldn't jump to any conclusion. I would want researchers to never stopping looking for answers until we genuinely understand what physically is going on in those individuals bodies. Talk therapy has too long been used to paper over that understanding and tried to tell people they are really just well if they thought differently and I am not convinced that Psychology should be funded as medicine given how it gets it wrong more than it gets it right and can't even get its diagnoses straight. Gulf war syndrome is a physical condition, it is basically PVCS/ME/Fybromylgia but for decades it was considered Psychological. I am constantly appalled by medicines practices.
ortusdux 5y ago
I work with a covid downplayer that was a covid denier up until a few months ago. They would say that this is proof that almost all deaths are being reported as covid in an attempt to make it seem more serious. I'll just avoid the topic.
- TOSSAWAY_1 5y ago
  Such a hard argument to make. I tend to stick to the pre-covid argument: if you want safety, stay home. I dont understand pretending to argue against the science -- of which i'll just point to rosemary kennedys expert medical advice and move on.
- orblivion 5y ago
  I was sort of wondering about this in a different way: How many nursing home suicides were preempted by an actual COVID-19 death? From a quick glance at the data, I don't think it would have accounted for the 5.7% drop, but I think it's worth considering among other factors. (I'm not a denier or downplayer)
  - shortstuffsushi 5y ago
    Is nursing home suicide a common thing? It's not something I've ever heard of before (and not something I would have any personal connection to). A couple minutes of googling seems to imply that nursing home rates are actually lower than general population, but maybe I'm not finding the right studies?
    - orblivion 5y ago
      I thought maybe people would be generally unhappy in those circumstances but maybe not. As for numbers I'd only looked at age group and yeah it didn't seem to go much higher than middle age. Again, it was just a thought that crossed my mind and I decided at best it didn't account for the whole drop.
      - pmiller2 5y ago
Zenst 5y ago
I disagree and having had two friends die to suicide this year already and many others on the verge, I wouldn't say this is that clear cut. After all, suicide by health neglect is a thing and easily gets wrapped up because somebody let themselves die from covid-19 and not call ambulance - so yeah. I'd not good news this one just yet.
- rodiger 5y ago
  I'm really sorry to hear that. I don't think anyone is suggesting suicide is no longer an issue- it most definitely is. However, anecdata is not a great metric for measuring large society-level changes.
  - Zenst 5y ago
    Thank you. Yes you are right it is not the best, but then is a sample of a short period of time at the start of a pandemic indicative of the entire pandemic. The true impact upon suicide is hard to really measure in such and certainly the only true picture will be a few years from now and having a few years worth of data. I dare say be many latent ones down to the economic impacts and other knock-on effects. [ADD] I looked and in the UK the rate has increased and been noted that that the aspect that coroner’s inquests initially at the start of the pandemic had been suspended due to caution in contamination and spread as we was still learning about the virus. An aspect that I'm sure mirror's in many countries globally.
the-dude 5y ago
Dutch suicide stats over 2020 : more or less the same.
tolbish 5y ago
Wouldn't attempts go up after the pandemic, when the effects have had time to propagate, and not during? Similarly, during normal times attempts go up not during the winter but in the spring, after people have had time to absorb the effects of winter.
Quarrelsome 5y ago
Does this suggest that we kill ourselves because of others as opposed to ourselves?
- moate 5y ago
  I think that would be a difficult conclusion to make. As several people have pointed out, suicidal ideation reports have spike higher during the same time. There are a ton of possible reasons people aren't dying from suicide, but there were more attempts during this time suggesting that your thesis isn't super strongly supported.
cm2012 5y ago
The stimulus checks and enhanced unemployment lifted a lot of people out of poverty this year, especially those with families.
- watwut 5y ago
  By all I have read, families with small kids have more financial troubles. And the biggest hit was on single moms. They had double hit of both childcare becoming super difficult and the kind of jobs low paid women have (service) being hit the most.
kjrose 5y ago
These numbers are completely ignoring a massive mental health crisis. I have multiple psychologist friends who are beyond booked solid for the next while and have never seen this high of demand. As well my ems friends say that suicide ideation and suicide attempts are way way up. As well as alcohol and drug poisoning cases (which are not marked as suicides usually)
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  Definitely agree that there is a mental health crisis. I wonder if some booking of psychologists & therapists might have to do with people now having liquid cash they can use to address things they couldn't in the past and a relative absence of other things to spend money on.
  - hn8788 5y ago
    Anecdotally, it's been much easier for me to see my therapist since covid started. Instead of having to take time off work to go to their office, everything is done over the phone.
    - pmiller2 5y ago
      I do my sessions over Zoom. Although I don't like the lower bandwidth of remote sessions vs in person, I can't say I miss the 70 miles round trip.
- Oras 5y ago
  I personally think we haven't seen the aftermath of the pandemic yet when it comes to mental health.
  - pmiller2 5y ago
    We almost certainly have not. I would expect at the very least an increase in PTSD cases. I might speculate there could be an increase in other anxiety disorders, for instance, social anxiety or mild agoraphobia. Although it isn't totally clear, there is some suggestion from the research that the number of prior depressive episodes is a risk factor for having another one [0]. --- [0]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2169519/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2169519/
stared 5y ago
I look at it with extra scruitiny, as I saw quite a few times diffent reserach results, e.g. https://www.aappublications.org/news/2020/12/16/pediatricssuicidestudy121620 https://www.aappublications.org/news/2020/12/16/pediatricssu... "Results showed recent suicidal ideation was 1.60 and 1.45 times higher in March and July 2020, respectively, than in March and July 2019. Odds of recent suicide attempt were 1.58, 2.34, 1.75 and 1.77 times higher in February, March, April and July 2020 than the same months in 2019, respectively." Ideation and attempt is not the same as death, but it is pretty alarming on its own. Additionally, I would expect that the longer lockdown gets, the higher suicide rate. Social isolation may take time to "kick in", in the meantime more people got out of business (or run in other serious troubles), and (likely) there was more hope in the first months for things to be over soon.
anovikov 5y ago
Here's quick guess of an explanation: introverts are more likely to commit suicide because they are less likely to benefit from support of other people if they are in a vulnerable state. Self-isolation meant they are subject to less stress because much fewer social interactions are forced upon them, and they feel good about themselves - as requirement to self-isolate suddenly turned them from "weirdos" to "exemplary citizens". In a way, everyone is forced to become an introvert these days, except for actual introverts, it's effortless and the world works in a lot more "their way" today. Personally i relate to this 100%. Another lockdown was announced hours ago and i suddenly feel i'm happy. I literally missed the lockdown days.
Y-Bopinator 5y ago
Surprisingly, the economist pushes lies
roflchoppa 5y ago
I’ve had less suicidal thoughts now that I work from home. It was the commut, I think.
mysterypie 5y ago
Studies like this makes me realize that it's impossible to predict trends in society by using logic alone. At the start of Covid pandemic I heard arguments that birth rates would go up (couples at home with plenty of time for sex) or that they would go down (not a good time to have a baby with hospitals overflowing and an uncertain future). Which was right? And what about murders: Would it go down because people have to stay home and bars were closed so less chance for drunken fights? Would it go up because people are frustrated and desperate with no jobs and no money? We now know the answers to the above (both births and murders went down during the past year), but as far as I know we can't prove the precise reason it happened the way it did. It reminds me of the big debates we had right here on Hacker News about why Americans were slim in the 1950s -- just look at photos of crowds from the 1950s -- but are overweight today. We know what happened but we can't prove the precise reason.
- watwut 5y ago
  >Studies like this makes me realize that it's impossible to predict trends in society by using logic alone. At the start of Covid pandemic That is because people who claim to be using the logic to the most tend to correlate with people why have astonishingly little knowledge about the topic at hand. They create over simplified model and ignore wast amount of studies and evidence that says their model is not conforming with real life. > I heard arguments that birth rates would go up (couples at home with plenty of time for sex) or that they would go down (not a good time to have a baby with hospitals overflowing and an uncertain future). Which was right? Sociologists were right, births went down, as pretty much always when there is large uncertainty and threat.People in the past did not made more babies when facing economic or health issues. People dont have babies when there is war. People dont have babies when they fear future. Plus, the other claim does not even makes logical sense. Anti-contraception exists, people can have sex without making babies, lack of time for sex is not why people don't have kids. Plus, videogames and netflix exists, it is not like there would be nothing to do. The point here is that the logical argument was not logical and ignored pretty much all what sociologists know about human behavior.
MoZeu 5y ago
Not forcing introverts into painful, humiliating social encounters will go a long way.
- pmiller2 5y ago
  Conversely, keeping extroverts at home and away from each other probably isn't doing them any good.
kerblang 5y ago
Random guess: Is it because people are less likely to be alone at home (family, roommates), making it harder to pull off the act without someone intervening?
neonate 5y ago
https://archive.is/zmmcr https://archive.is/zmmcr
Zenst 5y ago
I had a look at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/quarterlysuicidedeathregistrationsinengland/2001to2019registrationsandquarter1jantomartoquarter3julytosept2020provisionaldata https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsde... which has the UK's latest suicide data which is published quarterly and one stand-out that is very much relevant to suicide statistics globally during this pandemic and I quote: "The increase in registered suicides during the third quarter of 2020 likely reflects the resuming of coroner’s inquests" That right there is a huge factor and why I really don't feel we will know the true extent upon suicide until later this year, and few years after.
- DanBC 5y ago
  The study being talked about uses a mix of data sources, and doesn't just rely on coroner reported deaths.

123 points by mrtedbear 5y ago

Can’t see because of paywall, but wonder if it broken down by age. I recall seeing reports of school districts that were talking about increased suicide rate among teenagers in certain school districts.

spillguard 5y ago
There appears to be contrary data to that as well: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/04/pandemic-suicide-crisis-unsupported-data/618660/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/04/pandemic-... Apologies if you get paywalled.
whimsicalism 5y ago
"increased suicide rate among teenagers in certain school districts" - from the phrasing, this sounds like media reporting bias. Usually a combination of reporter being told to "find story on this thing" and multiple comparison bias. e: and I'm downvoted why?

timr 5y ago

Context: this is "surprising" (edit: mods changed title from "Surprisingly, suicide has become rarer during the pandemic") because suicidal ideation (and by some reports, attempts) were dramatically increased during our response to the pandemic. Deaths from alcohol and drug abuse are also up: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2776559 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle... https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/147/3/e2020029280 https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/147/3/e202002... https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6932a1.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6932a1.htm https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4095 https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4095 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33533876/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33533876/ https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/the-implications-of-covid-19-for-mental-health-and-substance-use/ https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/the-imp... On a more anecdotal note, I'm personally close to a therapist, and they're busier with SI patients than ever. They're also overwhelmed with demand, in general, having seen a significant increase in both patients and patients with SI over the course of 2020.

taneq 5y ago
So is this more of a "diagnosis of deaths as suicide has become rarer during the pandemic"?
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  I doubt the diagnostic criteria for suicide has changed dramatically during the pandemic. Fascinating seeing how so many people do not want to accept the data as is because it doesn't fit their pre-conceptions.
  - timr 5y ago
    > Fascinating seeing how so many people do not want to accept the data as is because it doesn't fit their pre-conceptions. Not sure exactly what you're implying here, but cherry-picking data to fit pre-conceptions has definitely been an epidemic of its own throughout the Covid situation.
    - watwut 5y ago
      Pretty much every discussion of covid had multiple people claiming that suicides went up so much, that they probably turned lockdowns, masking etc contraproductive. Cause they supposedly drove more people to suicide then saved. The suicides went down thing really goes against what significant part if HN wants to believe.
      - timr 5y ago
        > The suicides went down thing really goes against what significant part if HN wants to believe. And I just provided half a dozen links to better research that shows that this "suicides went down thing" is misleading. So yes, let's have a conversation about people cherry-picking the data they'd prefer to believe.
        hvac 5y ago

jjcon 5y ago

I sincerely doubt the tag line, “Financial support from governments may have reduced one potential cause of despair” has absolutely anything to do with it Suicide is rarely about true despair, I would say it is more about loss of purpose. When you are scrounging to get by or have bigger fish to fry than some existential demons, suicide falls to the back of your mind. When there is time to ponder bigger questions it returns.

CydeWeys 5y ago
I don't think this is true. A large percentage of suicides are associated with financial ruin, e.g. you're losing your house to foreclosure and about to be homeless. Preventing these situations by financial means would thus prevent said suicides. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/financial-hardship-is-a-top-risk-factor-for-suicide-attempts https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/financial-hardship...
wgjordan 5y ago
A cursory glance at empirical research suggests otherwise, that lower socioeconomic status is directly linked to higher suicide rates.
teachingassist 5y ago
This comment is romanticised nonsense which is consistently opposed by research. Suicide rates are strongly linked to socioeconomic status. Being in the 1st decile for income gives you a more than double risk than being in the 10th decile (and the risk is still higher among even poorer people). Article: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0917504017300382 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S091750401... Most relevant graph: https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0917504017300382-gr1.jpg https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S09175040173003...
- Alex3917 5y ago
  > This comment is romanticised nonsense which is consistently opposed by research. Suicide rates fluctuate wildly over time though, so trying to understand suicide by looking at relative rates within a given year is going to give you at best an incomplete picture.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

makomk 5y ago

It's worth bearing in mind that, as I understand it, other countries haven't yet released their suicide numbers for the period of the pandemic during which Japan's suicide rates rose - they apparently publish theirs more promptly than most places for some reason, which is why people have been keeping an eye on Japan as an early warning.

antegamisou 5y ago

Unpaywalled article https://archive.is/06hRj https://archive.is/06hRj

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

bostonpete 5y ago

Has become more common in some communities though... Suicides among Black people doubled during COVID-19 lockdowns, while suicides in white individuals were cut in half during the same period. https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2020-12-17/pandemic-tied-to-higher-suicide-rate-in-blacks-lowered-rate-in-whites-study https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2020-12-17/...

LudwigNagasena 5y ago
Is race really a more important factor than wealth? I would like to see dynamics across other demographics.
- intergalplan 5y ago
  It's super common for the main problem to be "urban living + poor" in these cases (sometimes, just "poor"). If you target interventions on those criteria, rather than color of skin, you'll do a good job of addressing the issue, because skin color wasn't the (primary) acute cause of the problem. The part where it's a race issue is farther up the causality chain, where "urban living + poor" becomes correlated with "black" in the first place. I suspect that the study took place in Maryland is why the effect is so pronounced. I wouldn't be a bit surprised to find that their race-demographics are even more skewed in terms of geographic distribution and SES than is typical nationwide.
  - jeffbee 5y ago
    Isn't suicide anti-correlated with urban living? In California urban counties like San Francisco, Alameda, and Los Angeles are clustered around 7 suicides per 100k, while rural counties like Shasta, Siskiyou, and Lake are 25-30.
    - sokoloff 5y ago
      The median urban San Francisco resident has a significantly higher income than the median Baltimore, MD resident, so if the socioeconomic link to suicide/attempt rate is strong, I could see this being a factor that would significantly confound the urban/suburban/rural split.

hn8788 5y ago

It doesn't say until a few paragraphs in that the study only covers the early months of the pandemic, and it's pretty misleading to focus only on succesful suicide attempts to try and paint things as not that bad. Overdoses, suicide attempts, and child abuse were significantly higher in 2020. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33533876/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33533876/

whimsicalism 5y ago
How should I view a falling rate of suicide but rising rate of suicide attempts? I am not sure that it is misleading, but agree it isn't the full picture. Naturally, I think the primary focus should be on decreasing successful suicide attempts, then on decreasing suicide attempts writ large.
- hn8788 5y ago
  Personally, I would lump suicide attempts and succesful suicides together in cases like this. I don't think it matters whether or not they succeed, just the fact that things are bad enough that they're suicidal means the pandemic was handled poorly. I don't know if the data is available, but increased attempts with a decrease in successes could be because people were stuck at home where someone could find them before it was too late.
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    I think it definitely matters whether they succeed or not, not much more to say on that other than I disagree and your approach misses important policy changes that could dramatically reduce suicide by reducing the deadliness of attempts (failed attempts make it less likely you will try again). I don't think an increase in suicides a priori means the pandemic is handled poorly if it is the best we could do while stopping the 600k virus deaths from becoming 1.2 mill or whatever.
    - sokoloff 5y ago
      It matters in one obvious substantive way, but there's a valid philosophical question as to whether person A who was depressed enough to attempt and fail at suicide is better or worse off than person B who successfully completed the act. Person A is very likely still depressed and in mental pain. Person B is not. Now, if person A "recovers" and goes on to experience many good years of life, maybe then they're better off, but right now, they may believe that they are worse off than person B.

mrwh 5y ago

I wonder if one mechanism is that the pandemic has affected everyone - some people worse than others of course, but we're all affected, there is this THING that we have in common with everyone else.

PaulKeeble 5y ago
Empathy from others is really important. There was a paper today about why chronically ill people kill themselves and the biggest reason is their doctors not believing them and trying to plying them with anti depressants instead of helping them with their real symptoms. It is a consistent thing you see before chronically ill people kill themselves, the belief that no one is going to help them now or ever (they are right by the way there is no one who is going to help them, their situation is likely never going to get better especially in areas with little to no research). With the pandemic you can find someone else going through the same sort of thing, they will have empathy about their shared experience. For most people this level of isolation is temporary however, for the disabled this is their every day and they also on a day to day before the pandemic they didn't have this empathy from anyone, from their family nor their doctors. It is about the best it has ever been for the chronically ill, people for once have some empathy for what they are going through but I suspect it wont last.
- m0llusk 5y ago
  This is also critical with PTSD in soldiers. It used to be thought that war trauma was the primary factor in veteran PTSD, but ongoing research is revealing that being part of a close group and then losing that contact and trust can have a devastating psychological impact.
  - PaulKeeble 5y ago
    In the past year I have learnt an awful lot about the historic and current maltreatments of a lot of ill people. Medicine is often held on a pedestal as a good example but the reality seems to be they jump to conclusions without good evidence all the time, sometimes they can be found to gaslight patients for decades, ME patients its nearly a century now and covid long haulers are suffering the consequences of that inaction. I have lost a lot of respect for doctors and medical research over the past few years. I suspect pretty much every "mental health" issue will at some point finally be tracked to a physical condition, potentially something we could have been treating decades beforehand if they had bothered to look. I don't know what underpins PTSD, I just know I wouldn't jump to any conclusion. I would want researchers to never stopping looking for answers until we genuinely understand what physically is going on in those individuals bodies. Talk therapy has too long been used to paper over that understanding and tried to tell people they are really just well if they thought differently and I am not convinced that Psychology should be funded as medicine given how it gets it wrong more than it gets it right and can't even get its diagnoses straight. Gulf war syndrome is a physical condition, it is basically PVCS/ME/Fybromylgia but for decades it was considered Psychological. I am constantly appalled by medicines practices.

ortusdux 5y ago

I work with a covid downplayer that was a covid denier up until a few months ago. They would say that this is proof that almost all deaths are being reported as covid in an attempt to make it seem more serious. I'll just avoid the topic.

TOSSAWAY_1 5y ago
Such a hard argument to make. I tend to stick to the pre-covid argument: if you want safety, stay home. I dont understand pretending to argue against the science -- of which i'll just point to rosemary kennedys expert medical advice and move on.
orblivion 5y ago
I was sort of wondering about this in a different way: How many nursing home suicides were preempted by an actual COVID-19 death? From a quick glance at the data, I don't think it would have accounted for the 5.7% drop, but I think it's worth considering among other factors. (I'm not a denier or downplayer)
- shortstuffsushi 5y ago
  Is nursing home suicide a common thing? It's not something I've ever heard of before (and not something I would have any personal connection to). A couple minutes of googling seems to imply that nursing home rates are actually lower than general population, but maybe I'm not finding the right studies?
  - orblivion 5y ago
    I thought maybe people would be generally unhappy in those circumstances but maybe not. As for numbers I'd only looked at age group and yeah it didn't seem to go much higher than middle age. Again, it was just a thought that crossed my mind and I decided at best it didn't account for the whole drop.
    - pmiller2 5y ago

Zenst 5y ago

I disagree and having had two friends die to suicide this year already and many others on the verge, I wouldn't say this is that clear cut. After all, suicide by health neglect is a thing and easily gets wrapped up because somebody let themselves die from covid-19 and not call ambulance - so yeah. I'd not good news this one just yet.

rodiger 5y ago
I'm really sorry to hear that. I don't think anyone is suggesting suicide is no longer an issue- it most definitely is. However, anecdata is not a great metric for measuring large society-level changes.
- Zenst 5y ago
  Thank you. Yes you are right it is not the best, but then is a sample of a short period of time at the start of a pandemic indicative of the entire pandemic. The true impact upon suicide is hard to really measure in such and certainly the only true picture will be a few years from now and having a few years worth of data. I dare say be many latent ones down to the economic impacts and other knock-on effects. [ADD] I looked and in the UK the rate has increased and been noted that that the aspect that coroner’s inquests initially at the start of the pandemic had been suspended due to caution in contamination and spread as we was still learning about the virus. An aspect that I'm sure mirror's in many countries globally.

the-dude 5y ago

Dutch suicide stats over 2020 : more or less the same.

tolbish 5y ago

Wouldn't attempts go up after the pandemic, when the effects have had time to propagate, and not during? Similarly, during normal times attempts go up not during the winter but in the spring, after people have had time to absorb the effects of winter.

Quarrelsome 5y ago

Does this suggest that we kill ourselves because of others as opposed to ourselves?

moate 5y ago
I think that would be a difficult conclusion to make. As several people have pointed out, suicidal ideation reports have spike higher during the same time. There are a ton of possible reasons people aren't dying from suicide, but there were more attempts during this time suggesting that your thesis isn't super strongly supported.

cm2012 5y ago

The stimulus checks and enhanced unemployment lifted a lot of people out of poverty this year, especially those with families.

watwut 5y ago
By all I have read, families with small kids have more financial troubles. And the biggest hit was on single moms. They had double hit of both childcare becoming super difficult and the kind of jobs low paid women have (service) being hit the most.

kjrose 5y ago

These numbers are completely ignoring a massive mental health crisis. I have multiple psychologist friends who are beyond booked solid for the next while and have never seen this high of demand. As well my ems friends say that suicide ideation and suicide attempts are way way up. As well as alcohol and drug poisoning cases (which are not marked as suicides usually)

whimsicalism 5y ago
Definitely agree that there is a mental health crisis. I wonder if some booking of psychologists & therapists might have to do with people now having liquid cash they can use to address things they couldn't in the past and a relative absence of other things to spend money on.
- hn8788 5y ago
  Anecdotally, it's been much easier for me to see my therapist since covid started. Instead of having to take time off work to go to their office, everything is done over the phone.
  - pmiller2 5y ago
    I do my sessions over Zoom. Although I don't like the lower bandwidth of remote sessions vs in person, I can't say I miss the 70 miles round trip.
Oras 5y ago
I personally think we haven't seen the aftermath of the pandemic yet when it comes to mental health.
- pmiller2 5y ago
  We almost certainly have not. I would expect at the very least an increase in PTSD cases. I might speculate there could be an increase in other anxiety disorders, for instance, social anxiety or mild agoraphobia. Although it isn't totally clear, there is some suggestion from the research that the number of prior depressive episodes is a risk factor for having another one [0]. --- [0]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2169519/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2169519/

stared 5y ago

I look at it with extra scruitiny, as I saw quite a few times diffent reserach results, e.g. https://www.aappublications.org/news/2020/12/16/pediatricssuicidestudy121620 https://www.aappublications.org/news/2020/12/16/pediatricssu... "Results showed recent suicidal ideation was 1.60 and 1.45 times higher in March and July 2020, respectively, than in March and July 2019. Odds of recent suicide attempt were 1.58, 2.34, 1.75 and 1.77 times higher in February, March, April and July 2020 than the same months in 2019, respectively." Ideation and attempt is not the same as death, but it is pretty alarming on its own. Additionally, I would expect that the longer lockdown gets, the higher suicide rate. Social isolation may take time to "kick in", in the meantime more people got out of business (or run in other serious troubles), and (likely) there was more hope in the first months for things to be over soon.

anovikov 5y ago

Here's quick guess of an explanation: introverts are more likely to commit suicide because they are less likely to benefit from support of other people if they are in a vulnerable state. Self-isolation meant they are subject to less stress because much fewer social interactions are forced upon them, and they feel good about themselves - as requirement to self-isolate suddenly turned them from "weirdos" to "exemplary citizens". In a way, everyone is forced to become an introvert these days, except for actual introverts, it's effortless and the world works in a lot more "their way" today. Personally i relate to this 100%. Another lockdown was announced hours ago and i suddenly feel i'm happy. I literally missed the lockdown days.

Y-Bopinator 5y ago

Surprisingly, the economist pushes lies

roflchoppa 5y ago

I’ve had less suicidal thoughts now that I work from home. It was the commut, I think.

mysterypie 5y ago

Studies like this makes me realize that it's impossible to predict trends in society by using logic alone. At the start of Covid pandemic I heard arguments that birth rates would go up (couples at home with plenty of time for sex) or that they would go down (not a good time to have a baby with hospitals overflowing and an uncertain future). Which was right? And what about murders: Would it go down because people have to stay home and bars were closed so less chance for drunken fights? Would it go up because people are frustrated and desperate with no jobs and no money? We now know the answers to the above (both births and murders went down during the past year), but as far as I know we can't prove the precise reason it happened the way it did. It reminds me of the big debates we had right here on Hacker News about why Americans were slim in the 1950s -- just look at photos of crowds from the 1950s -- but are overweight today. We know what happened but we can't prove the precise reason.

watwut 5y ago
>Studies like this makes me realize that it's impossible to predict trends in society by using logic alone. At the start of Covid pandemic That is because people who claim to be using the logic to the most tend to correlate with people why have astonishingly little knowledge about the topic at hand. They create over simplified model and ignore wast amount of studies and evidence that says their model is not conforming with real life. > I heard arguments that birth rates would go up (couples at home with plenty of time for sex) or that they would go down (not a good time to have a baby with hospitals overflowing and an uncertain future). Which was right? Sociologists were right, births went down, as pretty much always when there is large uncertainty and threat.People in the past did not made more babies when facing economic or health issues. People dont have babies when there is war. People dont have babies when they fear future. Plus, the other claim does not even makes logical sense. Anti-contraception exists, people can have sex without making babies, lack of time for sex is not why people don't have kids. Plus, videogames and netflix exists, it is not like there would be nothing to do. The point here is that the logical argument was not logical and ignored pretty much all what sociologists know about human behavior.

MoZeu 5y ago

Not forcing introverts into painful, humiliating social encounters will go a long way.

pmiller2 5y ago
Conversely, keeping extroverts at home and away from each other probably isn't doing them any good.

kerblang 5y ago

Random guess: Is it because people are less likely to be alone at home (family, roommates), making it harder to pull off the act without someone intervening?

neonate 5y ago

https://archive.is/zmmcr https://archive.is/zmmcr

Zenst 5y ago

I had a look at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/quarterlysuicidedeathregistrationsinengland/2001to2019registrationsandquarter1jantomartoquarter3julytosept2020provisionaldata https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsde... which has the UK's latest suicide data which is published quarterly and one stand-out that is very much relevant to suicide statistics globally during this pandemic and I quote: "The increase in registered suicides during the third quarter of 2020 likely reflects the resuming of coroner’s inquests" That right there is a huge factor and why I really don't feel we will know the true extent upon suicide until later this year, and few years after.

DanBC 5y ago
The study being talked about uses a mix of data sources, and doesn't just rely on coroner reported deaths.