Impact of sudden mass mortality on suicides

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that large-scale mass mortality events, such as the 1918 influenza epidemic, significantly increase suicide rates due to the disruption of family bonds, with statistical evidence showing extraordinary peaks in suicides.

Contribution

It provides empirical evidence linking mass mortality to increased suicides and proposes a mechanism involving family bond disruption as the causal factor.

Findings

Suicide rates peaked over 4 standard deviations during the 1918 influenza epidemic.

Mass mortalities can cause suicide rate jumps expected only once in several centuries.

Disruption of family bonds is a key mechanism linking mass mortality to increased suicides.

Abstract

We show that a large scale mass mortality results in increased numbers of suicides. As a case in point, we consider the influenza epidemic of October 1918 in the United States. In this month, suicides peaked at a level of over 4s (where s denotes the desaisonalized standard deviation of the suicide rate) which means that one would expect such a jump to occur merely by chance only once in several centuries. The mechanism that we propose to explain this effect relies on two steps (i) Mass mortalities break family bonds for instance between parents and children or husbands and wives. (ii) Increased numbers of suicides then result from the well known fact that the severance of family bonds invariably produces more suicides.