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IJE Advance Access originally published online on September 28, 2007
International Journal of Epidemiology 2007 36(6):1229-1234; doi:10.1093/ije/dym196
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Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Epidemiological Association © The Author 2007; all rights reserved.

The influence of media reporting of the suicide of a celebrity on suicide rates: a population-based study

Andrew T A Cheng1,*, Keith Hawton2, Charles T C Lee1 and Tony H H Chen3

1Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan.
2Centre for Suicide Research, University of Oxford, Warneford Hospital, Oxford, UK.
3Institute of Preventive Medicine, College of Public Health, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.

* Corresponding author. Division of Epidemiology, Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Academia Sinica, Taipei, 11529, Taiwan. E-mail: bmandrew{at}gate.sinica.edu.tw


  Abstract

Background The impact of media reporting of suicides of entertainment celebrities may affect suicide rates due to an imitation effect. We investigated the impact on suicides of the media reporting of the suicide of a male television celebrity.

Methods All suicides during 2003–2005 in Taiwan (n = 10 945) were included in this study. A Poisson time series autoregression analysis was conducted to examine whether there was an increase in suicides during the 4-week period after extensive media reporting of the celebrity suicide.

Results After controlling for seasonal variation, calendar year, temperature, humidity and unemployment rate, there was a marked increase in the number of suicides during the 4-week period after media reporting (relative risk = 1.17, 95% CI 1.04–1.31). The increase was in men (relative risk = 1.30, 95% CI 1.14–1.50) and for the individuals using the same highly lethal method (hanging) as the TV actor did (relative risk = 1.51, 95% CI 1.25–1.83). However, the age groups in which the increase occurred were younger than the age of the celebrity.

Conclusions The extensive media reporting of the celebrity suicide was followed by an increase in suicides with a strong implication of a modelling effect. The results provide further support for the need for more restrained reporting of suicides as part of suicide prevention strategies to decrease the imitation effect.

Keywords Media report, celebrity suicide, completed suicide

Accepted 15 August 2007


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