Citation

Ayers JW, Poliak A, Johnson DC, Leas EC, Dredze M, Caputi T, Nobles AL. JAMA Netw. Open 2021; 4(1): e2034261.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2021, American Medical Association)

DOI

10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.34261

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Internet searches for suicide, previously found to be associated with population changes in suicidal behavior,3,5 decreased during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in the US. Although this study cannot independently confirm that changes in search rates were caused by changes in population-level suicide rates, it showed that COVID-19 may have been inversely associated with population suicide trends between March and July 2020. Counter to expectations, our early findings are supported by the literature on catastrophic events.6 In some cases, catastrophes are associated with increased social support and unify communities and are thereby associated with reduced suicidal outcomes (what experts call the "pulling together" phenomenon). These include acute events, such as the 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, and long-lasting events, such as the response to the September 11 attacks on the US and the subsequent recovery efforts, and now potentially the COVID-19 pandemic. For instance, at the onset of the COVID-19 outbreak, business and community leaders adopted the United Nations' "We are all in this together" campaign, a theme that has since permeated pop culture.

Still, search rates for information on suicide may change, even increase, especially given a prolonged pandemic, making continued monitoring crucial. Moreover, researchers can extend the approach that we used (including tracking online help-seeking searches and social media shares) to empirically assess complementary proxies for other population mental health outcomes. Decision-makers could track hundreds of mental health search queries, identify the subsets that have greater demand, and target resources to meet those needs. Timely, empirical evidence from contemporaneous digital data sources can help steer limited resources to align with the needs of the public and promote data-driven debate regarding the potential societal implications of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Language: en