Suicide on Facebook-the tales of unnoticed departure in Bangladesh

Trend analysis and prediction of injury death in Xi’an city, China, 2005-2020

Background

Injury is an important cause of death in China. In the present study, we systematically analyzed the epidemiological characteristics and trends of injury death in Xi’an residents from 2005 to 2020.

Methods

Data on injury deaths from 2005 to 2020 were obtained from the “Xi’an Center for Disease Control and Prevention”, injury deaths were classified according to the International Classification Disease-10th Revision (ICD-10). The data were stratified by gender, age groups, injury types, and then overall and type-specific injury mortality rates were estimated. Joinpoint regression analysis was conducted to estimate annual percent change (APC). The grey interval predicting method was used to predict the future characteristics of injury deaths in Xi’an city.

Results

From 2005 to 2020, injury caused 32,596 deaths (5.79% of all deaths; 35.71/100000 population). Injury mortality rates were higher among males than females. Motor vehicle traffic accidents were the commonest injury type. The highest injury mortality rates were in those aged 85 years or older. Overall, Joinpoint regression analysis revealed that injury mortality had significantly (p < 0.05) decreasing trends. GM (1,1) model estimated that injury mortality will be on a declining curve.

Conclusions

Motor vehicle traffic accidents, transport accidents other than motor vehicles, unintentional falls, suicide, and accidental poisoning are the main causes of injury. The injury death rate is projected to decline over the next decade.

Facebook and Suicidal Behaviour: User Experiences of Suicide Notes, Live-Streaming, Grieving and Preventive Strategies-A Scoping Review

BACKGROUND

Facebook represents a new dimension for global information sharing. Suicidal behaviours and attempts are increasingly reported on Facebook. This scoping review explores the various aspects of suicidal behaviours associated with Facebook, discussing the challenges and preventive measures.

METHODS

PubMed, Google Scholar, and Scopus were searched for related articles published in English up to October 2021, using different combinations of "Facebook" and "suicide". A group of experts comprising consultant psychiatrists screened the records and read the full-text articles to extract relevant data. Twenty-eight articles were chosen as relevant and included in the review under four selected themes.

RESULTS

Facebook impacts on suicidal behaviours in different aspects. Announcing suicides through sharing notes or personal information may lead to the prediction of suicide but be harmful to the online audience. Live-streaming videos of suicide is another aspect that questions Facebook's ability to monitor shared contents that can negatively affect the audience. A positive impact is helping bereaved families to share feelings and seek support online, commemorating the lost person by sharing their photos. Moreover, it can provide real-world details of everyday user behaviours, which help predict suicide risk, primarily through novel machine-learning techniques, and provide early warning and valuable help to prevent it. It can also provide a timeline of the user's activities and state of mind before suicide.

CONCLUSIONS

Social media can detect suicidal tendencies, support those seeking help, comfort family and friends with their grief, and provide insights via timelining the users' activities leading to their suicide. One of the limitations was the lack of quantitative studies evaluating preventative efforts on Facebook. The creators' commitment and the users' social responsibility will be required to create a mentally healthy Facebook environment.

Social media and adolescent well-being in the Global South

Despite the rapid proliferation of digital technologies in the Global South, most academic research on social media and adolescent well-being has primarily focused on the Global North. This review investigates how social media impacts adolescent well-being in the Global South. We first review five regions (Sub-Saharan Africa, Middle East & North Africa, Latin America, China and South & South-East Asia) to highlight the complex ways social media interacts with well-being around the world. We then outline research gaps in the current understanding of the impacts of social media use on adolescent populations in diverse cultural contexts. We finally highlight potential lines of inquiry that future researchers could explore to build a nuanced, contextual perspective of the risks and opportunities of social media use.

The Use of Closed-Circuit Television and Video in Suicide Prevention: Narrative Review and Future Directions

BACKGROUND

Suicide is a recognized public health issue, with approximately 800,000 people dying by suicide each year. Among the different technologies used in suicide research, closed-circuit television (CCTV) and video have been used for a wide array of applications, including assessing crisis behaviors at metro stations, and using computer vision to identify a suicide attempt in progress. However, there has been no review of suicide research and interventions using CCTV and video.

OBJECTIVE

The objective of this study was to review the literature to understand how CCTV and video data have been used in understanding and preventing suicide. Furthermore, to more fully capture progress in the field, we report on an ongoing study to respond to an identified gap in the narrative review, by using a computer vision-based system to identify behaviors prior to a suicide attempt.

METHODS

We conducted a search using the keywords "suicide," "cctv," and "video" on PubMed, Inspec, and Web of Science. We included any studies which used CCTV or video footage to understand or prevent suicide. If a study fell into our area of interest, we included it regardless of the quality as our goal was to understand the scope of how CCTV and video had been used rather than quantify any specific effect size, but we noted the shortcomings in their design and analyses when discussing the studies.

RESULTS

The review found that CCTV and video have primarily been used in 3 ways: (1) to identify risk factors for suicide (eg, inferring depression from facial expressions), (2) understanding suicide after an attempt (eg, forensic applications), and (3) as part of an intervention (eg, using computer vision and automated systems to identify if a suicide attempt is in progress). Furthermore, work in progress demonstrates how we can identify behaviors prior to an attempt at a hotspot, an important gap identified by papers in the literature.

CONCLUSIONS

Thus far, CCTV and video have been used in a wide array of applications, most notably in designing automated detection systems, with the field heading toward an automated detection system for early intervention. Despite many challenges, we show promising progress in developing an automated detection system for preattempt behaviors, which may allow for early intervention.