Suicides Don ’t Actually Spike in Winter

There’s a long-enduring idea in the media that suicide rates peak in the winter months, when days get darker earlier, stress levels seem to rise, and the so-called “holiday blues” set in. The sentiment is so prevalent that 40% of stories published by news organizations about suicide during the 2022-2023 holiday season made this claim. There’s just one problem with these stories: no such seasonal trend exists in actual suicide data. In fact, December often sees a lull in suicide numbers worldwide. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Dan Romer, a research director at Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, has spent decades chasing the origins of this myth and working to correct it. In a new report out Dec. 4, he shares the results of worldwide survey data that shows the extent of the myth and new evidence that winter holidays play no role in suicidality. In a survey earlier this year, Romer asked more than 1,500 American adults about when they thought most suicides generally occur: April, June, August, October, or December. 81% picked December, despite the fact that more suicides have taken place during the four other months for the last 20 years. Read More: U.S. Suicide Rates Reached an All-Time High in 2022 It’s hard to pinpoint whether media warnings of a wintertime suicide bump are actually influencing the public’s misguided perception of this link, or vice versa. But Romer points to...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized healthscienceclimate Source Type: news