Tracking Suicide Risk Factors Through Twitter in the US

Crisis ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jared Jashinsky ◽  
Scott H. Burton ◽  
Carl L. Hanson ◽  
Josh West ◽  
Christophe Giraud-Carrier ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Risk Factors ◽  
At Risk ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Suicide Risk ◽  
The United States ◽  
Actual State ◽  
Suicide Rates ◽  
Keywords And Phrases ◽  
Suicide Risk Factors

Background: Suicide is a leading cause of death in the United States. Social media such as Twitter is an emerging surveillance tool that may assist researchers in tracking suicide risk factors in real time. Aims: To identify suicide-related risk factors through Twitter conversations by matching on geographic suicide rates from vital statistics data. Method: At-risk tweets were filtered from the Twitter stream using keywords and phrases created from suicide risk factors. Tweets were grouped by state and departures from expectation were calculated. The values for suicide tweeters were compared against national data of actual suicide rates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Results: A total of 1,659,274 tweets were analyzed over a 3-month period with 37,717 identified as at-risk for suicide. Midwestern and western states had a higher proportion of suicide-related tweeters than expected, while the reverse was true for southern and eastern states. A strong correlation was observed between state Twitter-derived data and actual state age-adjusted suicide data. Conclusion: Twitter may be a viable tool for real-time monitoring of suicide risk factors on a large scale. This study demonstrates that individuals who are at risk for suicide may be detected through social media.

Suicide Risk Factors: A Language Analysis Approach in Social Media

2021 ◽  
pp. 0261927X2110361
Author(s):  
Gerardo Sierra ◽  
Patricia Andrade-Palos ◽  
Gemma Bel-Enguix ◽  
Alejandro Osornio-Arteaga ◽  
Adriana Cabrera-Mora ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Risk Factors ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Suicide Risk ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Public Health Issue ◽  
Mexican Culture ◽  
Language Analysis ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Suicide Risk Factors ◽  
The Difference

Suicide represents a public health issue that requires new preventive strategies. Therefore, this study analyzes differences in language use between a themed posts group (suicide and depression) and a random posts group (non-specific topics) from different social media platforms. In addition, the similarity of the texts of themed posts group with the set of phrases linked to suicide risk factors is analyzed. Texts were processed using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) software. A 95% bootstrap confidence interval (CI) was built for the difference in means for the resulting values per word category across groups. Significant differences in the use of language were observed between the themed post group and the random post group, whereas no differences were found between the themed post group and the set of phrases linked to suicide risk factors. These results can contribute to the development of risk-detection tools, which identify users at risk based on the analysis of language use embedded in social media. Such opportune detection would significantly increase the suicide prevention work. However, there is still a latent need for doing more research in this field, especially for the Mexican culture.

Suicide Risk on Twitter

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samah Jamal Fodeh ◽  
Edwin D. Boudreaux ◽  
Rixin Wang ◽  
Dennis Silva ◽  
Robert Bossarte ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Risk Factors ◽  
Social Media ◽  
High Risk ◽  
Suicide Risk ◽  
Suicide Attempts ◽  
Language Patterns ◽  
Self Harm ◽  
Suicide Risk Factors ◽  
Twitter Users ◽  
Use Of Social Media

While many studies have explored the use of social media and behavioral changes of individuals, few examined the utility of using social media for suicide detection and prevention. The study by Jashinsky et al. identified specific language patterns associated with a set of twelve suicide risk factors. The authors extended these methods to assess the significance of the language used on Twitter for suicide detection. This article quantifies the use of Twitter to express suicide related language, and its potential to detect users at high risk of suicide. The authors searched Twitter for tweets indicative of 12 suicide risk factors. This paper divided Twitter users into two groups: “high risk” and “at risk” based on two of the risk factors (“self-harm” and “prior suicide attempts”) and examined language patterns by computing co-occurrences of terms in tweets which helped identify relationships between suicide risk factors in both groups.

Risk Factors for Femicide-Suicide in Abusive Relationships: Results From a Multisite Case Control Study

2006 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Koziol-Mclain ◽  
Daniel Webster ◽  
Judith McFarlane ◽  
Carolyn Rebecca Block ◽  
Yvonne Ulrich ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Risk Factors ◽  
Suicide Risk ◽  
Case Control Study ◽  
The United States ◽  
Case Control ◽  
Abusive Relationships ◽  
Suicide Threats ◽  
Suicide Risk Factors ◽  
Control Study

The killing of women by men who then take their own lives (femicide-suicide) is the most common form of homicide-suicide. This study identified femicide-suicide risk factors in an 11-city case-control study of femicide in the United States. Perpetrator, victim, relationship, and incident characteristics were analyzed for femicide-suicide cases (n = 67) and controls (n = 356, women living in the community with nonfatal physical abuse) using logistic regression modeling. Two risk factors emerged that were unique to femicide-suicides cases compared to overall femicide risk analyses: prior perpetrator suicide threats and victims having ever been married to the perpetrator.

scholarly journals Suicide rates and risk factors for suicide among Israeli immigrants from Ethiopia (1985–2017)

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rafael Youngmann ◽  
Nelly Zilber ◽  
Ziona Haklai ◽  
Nehama Goldberger
Keyword(s):  
Risk Factors ◽  
At Risk ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Low Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
Suicide Risk ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Subsequent Increase ◽  
Ethiopian Immigrants ◽  
Suicide Rates

Abstract Background Suicide rates among Ethiopian immigrants to Israel (EI) are relatively high. This study sought to identify suicide-risk factors in this population in order to suggest some potentially preventive measures to mental health policymakers who are struggling to prevent suicide among EI. Method Nationwide age-adjusted suicide rates were calculated for EI, Former Soviet Union immigrants (FSUI) and Israeli-born (IB) Jews by age, gender, and year of death and, for EI, by marital status and immigration period in the years 1985–2017 (1990–2017 for FSUI). Results Age-adjusted suicide rates for the period 1990–2017 confirmed the significantly higher rate among EI––3.1 times higher than for FSUI and 4.1 times higher than for IB. Similar rates were obtained for both genders, within each age group, and in all study years. Comparable male/female rate ratios were found among EI and IB (3.3, 3.6, respectively). Over the years of the study, only among the Ethiopian immigrants were there large fluctuations in suicide rates: a decrease (1992–2001), followed by an increase (2001–2006), and then a progressive decrease (from 2006). The secular changes differed greatly according to age. Among females, these fluctuations were smaller, the decrease began earlier and was greater, and the subsequent increase was much smaller. Marriage was found to be less protective for Ethiopian immigrants than for the other surveyed populations. Conclusions The considerable gap between the EI’s and FSUI’s suicide rates highlights the critical role of immigrants’ integration difficulties. These difficulties among EI lead to ongoing conflict within the family, which may explain why marriage is less protective for EI. Nevertheless, progressive integration is occurring as indicated by the decline in suicide rates since 2006. The fluctuations in EI suicide rates over time seem to be associated with modifications in social welfare allowances, which are crucial for EI of low socioeconomic status. Groups at risk, particularly EI men facing socioeconomic challenges and EI with considerable family conflict, typically identified by HMOs and welfare services, should be screened for suicide risk, and those identified as at risk referred to tailored workshops sensitive to Ethiopian culture.

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