Today is World Suicide Prevention Day, and new research from àËÅöÊÓƵ explains how the language used in the media’s reporting of economic news can help to forecast suicide trends and prevent the alarming rise in suicides.
Brunel’s business economics expert, Prof Francesco Moscone, along with researchers from Italy’s Universities of Padua and Milan-Biocca, explored the impact of the media’s reporting of economic news in anticipating suicide figures in England and Wales.
In the UK, people between the ages of 45 and 54 have the highest rates of suicide, and it is the biggest killer of under 35 in the UK. In 2021, 5,583 suicides were registered in England and Wales, which was 6.9% higher than the year before.
The UK government’s National Suicide Prevention Strategy aims to reduce England’s suicide rate and support specific groups at risk of suicide, such as children and young people, middle-aged men, pregnant women and new mothers.
The Brunel-led used over 200,000 news articles from six major UK newspapers that reported on economic news. The emotional content of each article was extracted using the WordNet-Affect dictionary, which contains information about the emotions that words convey.
The researchers measured the presence of four specific emotions in the articles – fear, anxiety, sadness and despair – which are commonly linked to poor mental health and depression.
“We found a significant association between highly negative comments concerning economic conditions within the articles and a surge in suicide numbers,” explained Prof Moscone. “The association was particularly pronounced when the language used evoked emotions of fear and despair,” he added.
Prof Moscone highlights how the emotion indicators found in the articles may capture elements linked to human perception and mood that influence suicidal behaviour and individual decision-making.
“The media’s choice of words was a particular focus for understanding the complex interplay between media, language and mental well-being, and our results suggest that articles carrying very strong, negative sentiments might serve as an early warning system for the deterioration of a population’s mental health,” said Prof Moscone.
“Economic news reports can help us to better predict and forecast suicide rates relative to traditional determinants of suicide, such as unemployment rate, age and extreme weather conditions,” he added.
Given the large delay in which official statistics on suicides are released, Prof Moscone believes that monitoring the language used in the media’s reporting of economic news may help central decision-makers anticipate trends in suicides and could enable a swifter allocation of resources for mental health support.
“The suicide figures are released every 2 years, but following economic trends allows us to forecast the number of suicides within 3 months,” said Prof Moscone.
“The media is an influential voice in society, and our findings shed light on the subtle yet profound ways that the media can impact a society’s mental well-being,” he added.
“By understanding these dynamics, we open doors to proactive support and intervention for mental health services.”
‘The Role of Economic News in Predicting Suicides’, by Elisa Tosetti, Francesco Moscone and Giorgio Vittadini, is published in Economics and Human Biology.
Reported by:
Nadine Palmer,
Media Relations
+44 (0)1895 267090
nadine.palmer@brunel.ac.uk