When a group of suicides or suicide attempts take place closely together, above what would normally be considered typical for any given community, these incidents are defined as a suicide cluster.
As the US-based Center for Disease Control and Prevention explains, there are two main types of cluster: Mass clusters, where a greater than expected number of suicides or attempts are spread out geographically within a set period of time, and point clusters, where a greater than expected number occur within a set timeframe in a specific location.
Previous research shows that there is no single place where clusters are more likely to take place, occurring in a range of locations and settings, including among teenagers and young adults, in hospitals, military institutions and schools, among those in psychiatric inpatient facilities and so on.
It’s possible that these clusters may take place because of suicide contagion, where exposure to suicide or suicidal behaviour influences others either directly through personal connection or indirectly through media reporting.
The issue of suicide clusters among young people in particular is now being focused on, thanks to the publication of a new book – Life Under Pressure: The Social Roots of Youth Suicide and What to Do About Them – which explores why clusters take place and how they can be prevented.
Written by sociologists Anna Mueller and Seth Abrutyn, the book was the result of several suicide clusters taking place in Poplar Grove, with Ms Mueller devoting three years of her life to helping the community understand what happened.
It was found that social environments and the academic pressure being felt by students had a major role to play in making them more vulnerable to suicide ideation.
To help tackle the problem, the suggestion was made that training programmes be set up to identify suicide warning signs for educators, while parents were encouraged to refrain from publicising their children’s successes in the public domain.
Discussing Poplar Grove, Ms Mueller said: “It is a special, beautiful, caring community where everybody talks about being surrounded by this web of support. Even the kids feel this.
“But those very sorts of supportive relationships become toxic or challenging when they’re combined with this intense culture that has a very specific and very narrow definition of what it means to be a good kid and a good family. We found kids having incredibly intense emotional responses to even just the prospect of failure.”
The book itself goes on to address the challenges faced by schools when handling postvention responses, with what few resources there are available advising a return to normal as soon as possible.
But Ms Mueller found that this had the potential to feel dismissive to students, particularly when done with little care or without acknowledging the loss.
Are you considering suicide prevention training? Suicide Bereavement UK delivers evidence-based theory driven courses informed by research and provided by experts in their field.
For further information, contact:
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Suicide Bereavement UK
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Email: paul.higham@suicidebereavementuk.com