Celebrity suicides can act as a “contagion”, causing thousands of people to consider taking their own lives, a new study has warned.
Researchers analyzed the “rapid and expansive spread” of suicidal behavior linked to the deaths of three iconic individuals, including actor Robin Williams, fashion designer Kate Spade and travel writer Anthony Bourdain.
They found a 1,000-fold increase in people fantasizing about suicide after Williams’ death in 2014, demonstrating how the contagion spreads quickly.
The team said they hope their findings will provide a framework for understanding suicide contagion so we can better understand, prevent and contain its spread in the future.
Robin Williams (left) committed suicide by hanging in 2014, leading to a rise in the number of Americans taking their own lives in the same way, and Kate Spade (right) committed suicide by hanging in 2018.
Researchers at Columbia University reported that there is no single factor that causes suicide or suicidal thoughts, but that some have been attributed to social or contagious processes.
People’s proximity or familiarity with others who have thought about, attempted or committed suicide has been found to contribute to their developing their own suicidal thoughts or actions, the team said.
They focused on the spikes in suicide rates following Williams’ death and the subsequent deaths of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain, who died just days apart in 2018.
The study, published in the journal Science Advances, analyzed data from total weekly calls made to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, a 24-hour call center, to estimate how many people experienced suicidal thoughts and mortality data from the National Vital Statistics System.
“The model we developed shows how suicide contagion, including both suicidal ideation and deaths, spreads rapidly following the suicide deaths of celebrities whose lives and work are well-known and likely meaningful to large segments of the population,” he added.
Suicide is now the ninth leading cause of death among people ages 10 to 64, and was responsible for more than 48,000 deaths in 2021, equivalent to about one death every 11 minutes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Jeffrey Shaman, a co-author of the study and a professor at Columbia University, said there was a substantial increase in the volume of calls to Lifeline following the deaths of the three celebrities, but Williams’ suicide appeared to have a bigger impact.
“The 2018 case is similar, although the magnitude of changes in the suicide contagion rate following news of Spade’s and Bourdain’s suicides was roughly half that,” Shaman said.
‘Between the two celebrity suicide events, the number of excess suicide deaths was approximately double after the 2014 Williams event, potentially reflecting differences in communication and media attention following each event and the level of population connection to the deceased.’
Williams was a beloved actor known for his roles in the critically acclaimed films Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), and Good Will Hunting (1997), among many others.
He was just 63 when he committed suicide by hanging, and his death shocked the world with data showing there was a 32 percent increase in the number of people taking their own lives using the same method, according to a 2018 study by Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.
“While we cannot determine with certainty that these deaths are attributable to Robin Williams’ death, we found a rapid increase in suicides in August 2014, and specifically suicides by asphyxiation, that paralleled the timing and method of Williams’ death,” study co-author David Fink said at the time.
Anthony Bourdain was a travel writer who committed suicide by hanging himself just days after Kate Spade in June 2018.
Now researchers said their latest findings mirror the 2018 study, which documented that suicide rates in the U.S. rose 37 percent between 2000 and 2018, but declined five percent between 2018 and 2020 before returning to their peak in 2021.
Spade and Bourdain died three days apart in June 2018 (both by hanging) and drew attention to the rising number of suicides in the United States.
“In the 2014 and 2018 simulations, the increase in infection rates lasted about two weeks before returning to baseline levels,” Shaman said.
Suicide is now the ninth leading cause of death among people aged 10 to 64, and was responsible for more than 48,000 deaths in 2021, equivalent to about one death every 11 minutes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION).
Professor Katherine Keyes, a co-author of the study, said her ultimate goal going forward “is to work towards a point where a suicide contagion model can inform a rapid response aimed at preventing suicide.”
