TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2023//
TI  - 13 reasons why probably increased emergency room visits for self-harm among teenage girls
JO  - Sociological science
A1  - Felton, C.
SP  - 930
EP  - 963
VL  - 10
IS  - 
N2  - I present evidence that the release of Netflix's 13 Reasons Why--a fictional series about the aftermath of a teenage girl's suicide--caused a temporary spike in emergency room (ER) visits for self-harm among teenage girls in the United States. I conduct an interrupted time series analysis using monthly counts of ER visits obtained from a large, nationally representative survey. I estimate that the show caused an increase of 1,297 self-harm visits (95 percent CI: 634 to 1,965) the month it was released, a 14 percent (6.5 percent, 23 percent) spike relative to the predicted counterfactual. The effect persisted for two months, and ER visits for intentional cutting--the method of suicide portrayed in the series--were unusually high following the show's release. The findings indicate that fictional portrayals of suicide can influence real-life self-harm behavior, providing support for contagion-based explanations of suicide. <br><br>METHODologically, the study showcases how to make credible causal claims when effect estimates are likely biased. © 2023 The Author(s). This open-access article has been published under a Creative Commons Attribution License, which allows unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction, in any form, as long as the original author and source have been credited.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 2330-6696
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.15195/V10.A33
ID  - ref1
ER  -