IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0191405.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Increase in suicides the months after the death of Robin Williams in the US

Author

Listed:
  • David S Fink
  • Julian Santaella-Tenorio
  • Katherine M Keyes

Abstract

Investigating suicides following the death of Robin Williams, a beloved actor and comedian, on August 11th, 2014, we used time-series analysis to estimate the expected number of suicides during the months following Williams’ death. Monthly suicide count data in the US (1999–2015) were from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Wide-ranging ONline Data for Epidemiologic Research (CDC WONDER). Expected suicides were calculated using a seasonal autoregressive integrated moving averages model to account for both the seasonal patterns and autoregression. Time-series models indicated that we would expect 16,849 suicides from August to December 2014; however, we observed 18,690 suicides in that period, suggesting an excess of 1,841 cases (9.85% increase). Although excess suicides were observed across gender and age groups, males and persons aged 30–44 had the greatest increase in excess suicide events. This study documents associations between Robin Williams’ death and suicide deaths in the population thereafter.

Suggested Citation

  • David S Fink & Julian Santaella-Tenorio & Katherine M Keyes, 2018. "Increase in suicides the months after the death of Robin Williams in the US," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(2), pages 1-12, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0191405
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0191405
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0191405
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0191405&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0191405?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pirkis, Jane E. & Burgess, Philip M. & Francis, Catherine & Blood, R. Warwick & Jolley, Damien J., 2006. "The relationship between media reporting of suicide and actual suicide in Australia," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(11), pages 2874-2886, June.
    2. Tousignant, Michel & Mishara, Brian L. & Caillaud, Aline & Fortin, Veronique & St-Laurent, Danielle, 2005. "The impact of media coverage of the suicide of a well-known Quebec reporter: the case of Gaëtan Girouard," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 60(9), pages 1919-1926, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jan Domaradzki, 2021. "The Werther Effect, the Papageno Effect or No Effect? A Literature Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(5), pages 1-20, March.
    2. Niall McTernan & Ailbhe Spillane & Grace Cully & Eimear Cusack & Theresa O’Reilly & Ella Arensman, 2018. "Media reporting of suicide and adherence to media guidelines," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 64(6), pages 536-544, September.
    3. Joana M. Barros & Ruth Melia & Kady Francis & John Bogue & Mary O’Sullivan & Karen Young & Rebecca A. Bernert & Dietrich Rebholz-Schuhmann & Jim Duggan, 2019. "The Validity of Google Trends Search Volumes for Behavioral Forecasting of National Suicide Rates in Ireland," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(17), pages 1-18, September.
    4. Victoria Carmichael & Rob Whitley, 2019. "Media coverage of Robin Williams’ suicide in the United States: A contributor to contagion?," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(5), pages 1-13, May.
    5. Tanja Laukkala & Alpo Vuorio & Robert Bor & Bruce Budowle & Pooshan Navathe & Eero Pukkala & Antti Sajantila, 2018. "Copycats in Pilot Aircraft-Assisted Suicides after the Germanwings Incident," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-8, March.
    6. Arendt, Florian & Haim, Mario & Scherr, Sebastian, 2020. "Investigating Google's suicide-prevention efforts in celebrity suicides using agent-based testing: A cross-national study in four European countries," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 262(C).
    7. S M Yasir Arafat & Araz Ramazan Ahmad & Ayoob Kareem Saeed & Vikas Menon & Sheikh Shoib & Sujita Kumar Kar, 2022. "Quality of media reporting of suicide in Iraq," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 68(2), pages 443-448, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Niederkrotenthaler, Thomas & Till, Benedikt & Kapusta, Nestor D. & Voracek, Martin & Dervic, Kanita & Sonneck, Gernot, 2009. "Copycat effects after media reports on suicide: A population-based ecologic study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(7), pages 1085-1090, October.
    2. Zheng Wang & Guang Yu & Xianyun Tian, 2018. "Exploring Behavior of People with Suicidal Ideation in a Chinese Online Suicidal Community," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(1), pages 1-13, December.
    3. Fahey, Robert A. & Matsubayashi, Tetsuya & Ueda, Michiko, 2018. "Tracking the Werther Effect on social media: Emotional responses to prominent suicide deaths on twitter and subsequent increases in suicide," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 219(C), pages 19-29.
    4. Mueller, Anna S., 2017. "Does the media matter to suicide?: Examining the social dynamics surrounding media reporting on suicide in a suicide-prone community," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 152-159.
    5. Emmanuel Nii-Boye Quarshie & Johnny Andoh-Arthur & Kwaku Oppong Asante & Winifred Asare-Doku, 2021. "Online media reporting of suicidal behaviour in Ghana: Analysis of adherence to the WHO guidelines," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 67(3), pages 251-259, May.
    6. Jan Domaradzki, 2021. "The Werther Effect, the Papageno Effect or No Effect? A Literature Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(5), pages 1-20, March.
    7. Merike Sisask & Airi Värnik, 2012. "Media Roles in Suicide Prevention: A Systematic Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 9(1), pages 1-16, January.
    8. Ueda, Michiko & Mori, Kota & Matsubayashi, Tetsuya & Sawada, Yasuyuki, 2017. "Tweeting celebrity suicides: Users' reaction to prominent suicide deaths on Twitter and subsequent increases in actual suicides," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 189(C), pages 158-166.
    9. Collings, Sunny C. & Kemp, Christopher G., 2010. "Death knocks, professional practice, and the public good: The media experience of suicide reporting in New Zealand," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 244-248, July.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0191405. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.