Citation

Fink DS, Santaella-Tenorio J, Keyes KM. PLoS One 2018; 13(2): e0191405.

Affiliation

Department of Epidemiology, Columbia University, New York, New York, United States of America.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Public Library of Science)

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0191405

PMID

29415016

Abstract

Investigating suicides following the death of Robin Williams, a beloved actor and comedian, on August 11th, 2014, we used time-series analysis to estimate the expected number of suicides during the months following Williams' death. Monthly suicide count data in the US (1999-2015) were from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Wide-ranging ONline Data for Epidemiologic Research (CDC WONDER). Expected suicides were calculated using a seasonal autoregressive integrated moving averages model to account for both the seasonal patterns and autoregression. Time-series models indicated that we would expect 16,849 suicides from August to December 2014; however, we observed 18,690 suicides in that period, suggesting an excess of 1,841 cases (9.85% increase). Although excess suicides were observed across gender and age groups, males and persons aged 30-44 had the greatest increase in excess suicide events. This study documents associations between Robin Williams' death and suicide deaths in the population thereafter.

Language: en

Keywords

Werther effect