4 ms·
girls 15-19 that self harmed: 0.45% -> 0.7%. A 47% increase! boys 15-19 that died by suicide: 0.01% -> 0.016%. A 34% increase! Relative increase percentages (
by password11 4y ago
girls 15-19 that self harmed: 0.45% -> 0.7%. A 47% increase!
boys 15-19 that died by suicide: 0.01% -> 0.016%. A 34% increase!
Relative increase percentages (i.e. exponentials) are misleading when they are measuring linear phenomena like suicide rate. You could just as easily say there was a 0.1% decrease in the percent of boys who didn't die by suicide.
It's misleading because the new 0.006% of male suicides are unrelated to the existing 0.01%.
Suicide rate is not a ROI or conversion rate. Use absolute percentages please. I get they're writing to accentuate big impact -- and suicide is a big deal -- but this is disingenuous.
- DubiousPusher 4y agoHelp me out. I don't see the problem. If there are 100 suicides per 100,000 people in a year amongst a cohort and the next year there are 134 per 100,000, that's an increase in total suicides of 34%. I don't really see why that's not useful as an indicator of how much worse the problem is getting. To me, it would be nice if they were clearer about what that percentage represents, is it the average from 2000-2010 vs the average from 2010-2020? A bigger issue to me is that small window of the data. It's hard to tell how bumpy this curve is over the long term. Like is a suicide rate amongst teens that fluctuates 34%, decade over decade typical?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- password11 4y agoI wrote a long post but deleted it. > Help me out. I don't see the problem. This is the problem: https://xkcd.com/1102/ https://xkcd.com/1102/
- zeroonetwothree 4y agoIt's similar to how studies report that food X is bad and increases your risk of <rare disease> by 30%. Which in absolute terms is 0.01% -> 0.013%.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]