Grant: Project Grant

Despite rising public awareness, suicide remains a leading cause of death among youth aged 10-29 worldwide. Youth are especially vulnerable to suicide contagion, where their risk is elevated through direct or indirect exposure to suicidal peers, and to suicide clusters. Suicide clusters can have devastating impacts on peers, families, and communities. Although we know that suicide-related content is often shared and discussed on online and social media, we don't yet know how this has affected patterns of suicidal behaviour in youth. The aims of this study are to: (1) examine whether rates or mechanisms of suicide clustering have changed with rising use of online and social media by youth; and (2) identify early indicators of clustering to improve monitoring and intervention. We predict that use of online media will produce more diffuse exposures to suicide among youth, which will result in suicidal behaviours that are clustered in time but not space. It is expected that population-level healthcare utilization and online behaviour may indicate when and where suicide clusters are about to occur. This study uses population-level health and administrative records to gather a comprehensive picture of suicidal behaviours in over one million youth, aged 10-29, living in BC between 1998-2017. Analyses will use spatial statistics to detect clustering in space (geographic) and time (temporal). Analyses will also examine how rates and patterns of suicide clusters have changed over the past two decades, with special attention to how patterns may have shifted since online and social media became prominent methods of communication among youth. This study addresses several important gaps in knowledge regarding whether, when, and why suicide clustering occurs in youth. Findings will inform monitoring, prevention, intervention and public policy efforts that can reduce the global health burden associated with youth suicide.