Tragedy following tragedies: Are online media reported suicides causing more suicides?

This paper provides further evidence for what is known as the “Werther Effect” popularized by David Phillips, Ph.D. The “Werther Effect” is the name given to the observed relationship between celebrity suicides and the national suicide rate. That is, media-covered suicides are sometimes followed by a small, positive shock in the national suicide rate. In this study, we compiled a dataset that marked celebrities or persons who are related to celebrities in some indirect way as experimental variables to observe the effect of fame on suicides. Previous studies have supported the notion that more famous celebrity suicides would suggest a corollary increase in suicides however; statistical research was scarce on this subject. Using this unique data set of variables collected from Google News combined with several U.S. national variables including our own complied list of prominent suicides and the U.S crude suicide deaths taken from the CDC’s WONDER database, we add to the literature on this effect in two ways. First, we use a wide array of empirical approaches in attempt to capture this difficult to estimate effect including lagged and logged variables, and provide methodological advice for future researchers. Second, our data are as recent as 2016, allowing for discussion and examination of whether or not this effect’s magnitude has changed in the digital age, where news of celebrity suicides spread farther and more rapidly. Wasserman’s study provided a reference on methodology, whose findings improved and reinforced Phillip’s original conclusions. To improve on Wasserman’s study, we will use several forecasting and times series econometric techniques to observe effects of the variables collected. His conclusion that Phillip’s findings supported the hypothesis of celebrity suicides influencing the suicidal were maintained by our research.