Massachusetts study finds no rise in suicides during pandemic lockdown.President Trump and other politicians have repeatedly warned that lockdowns and similar measures could cause at least as much distress as they prevent, in particular by increasing the risk of overdoses and suicides because of economic hardship. But the evidence for that claim is sparse; on Monday, a study posted on
Medrxiv, a prepublication site, found that in Massachusetts, the suicide rate during the state’s lengthy stay-at-home advisory last spring remained steady, neither increasing nor decreasing.
The analysis is being submitted to a journal; it has not yet undergone peer review.
“This narrative that longer stay-at-home policies drive suicides doesn’t bear out,” said Dr. Jeremy Faust, an emergency medicine physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and the lead author of the study. “At least in a state that had a very long stay-at-home advisory, which, for all intents and purposes, was a shutdown. It was a ghost town here.”
Dr. Faust led a team of researchers from Harvard and Yale who compared suicide rates from March to May, when the state was largely shut down, with the rates during the same months in 2019, which were in line with previous years. The team adjusted for background trends (U.S. rates have been increasing steadily for many groups since at least 2008) and for the numbers of deaths still under investigation as possible suicides. The rate this spring was unchanged from previous years — just under one suicide a month per 100,000 people.
“Our data are reassuring that an increase in suicide deaths in Massachusetts during the stay-at-home advisory did not occur,” the authors concluded. “Moving forward, effective prevention efforts will require comprehensive attention to the full spectrum of mental health services.”
— Benedict Carey
New York Times
