The media can exert a powerful influence over suicidal behaviour and other major public health issues such as cancer screening, new research suggests.
An 鈥渁larming escalation鈥� in people鈥檚 use of burning charcoal to commit suicide has been recorded by a team at the University of Hong Kong. The rapid rise followed detailed media accounts of a woman who took her own life by starting a charcoal fire in her cramped apartment and suffocating in the carbon monoxide gas produced.
And British researchers found a 21 per cent hike in cervical cancer screening uptake around Manchester, following a television soap opera plot in which a woman dies of the disease.
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The debate about suicide and the media was re-ignited by an editorial in the British Medical Journal in December 2002. One of the authors, Keith Hawton, told 快猫短视频: 鈥淭here is very, very strong evidence for the influence [of media coverage] on the method of suicide.鈥�
The Hong Kong study supports Hawton鈥檚 argument that describing the method of suicide in detail is the most likely factor to cause further deaths. Some studies suggest media coverage can cause an absolute increase in suicides, says Hawton, director of the Centre for Suicide Research at the University of Oxford.
Romanticised death
Within two months of the death of the Hong Kong woman in 1998, suicide by charcoal burning became the third most common suicide method, despite being uncommon before. By 2001, it had replaced hanging as the second commonest method of committing suicide in Hong Kong 鈥� accounting for 25 per cent of all deaths.
Kathy Chan, at the University of Hong Kong, said: 鈥淐ompared with jumping, which accounts for most local suicide deaths, suicide by burning charcoal was romanticised as an easy and comfortable way of dying.鈥�
Hawton says the media often oversimplifies the causes of suicide and ignores underlying mental health illness: 鈥淭he mental health issues we know are involved in many, many suicides do not achieve the prominence they should.鈥�
Expensive exercise
The rise in cervical smear tests seen by British researchers, followed the Coronation Street character Alma discovering she had cervical cancer and then dying within six weeks. The plot triggered 14,000 extra tests in the north west of England 鈥� a 21 per cent rise on the previous year.
鈥淭here were some women who hadn鈥檛 had a smear before who came 鈥� which would clearly be of great benefit,鈥� Andy Howe, a registrar at Greater Manchester Strategic Health Authority, told 快猫短视频.
But most women would have had tests scheduled and would not derive great benefit. 鈥淎 lot of people were coming because they were made afraid,鈥� he says. In the few months following the story line there were 4.5 million extra smears across the UK 鈥� 鈥渁 very expensive exercise鈥�, says Howe.
It is very unusual for a person to die within six weeks of diagnosis, he adds, saying 鈥渁 more realistic portrayal might have caused less fear鈥�.
Journal reference: British Medical Journal (vol 326, p 498)