Posts Tagged ‘ Suicide Barriers ’

Who’s at Fault if Suicide Deterrents Fail?

July 9th, 2010. By AbiK

A study done by Canadian researchers looks at suicide barriers—those grids or bars on bridges and places like the observation deck of the Empire State Building that are supposed to prevent would-be suicide victims. According to an article at healthfinder.gov, the study showed that, “suicide barriers on bridges may fail to reduce overall rates of people jumping to their deaths because jumpers may go elsewhere to commit suicide.”

I read that line and thought, “No kidding.”

Read it again to ensure you understand what the study was trying to ascertain. The idea was to see if having suicide barriers in a geographical area translated into a lower suicide rate for that area as a whole—ie, not just whether the rate of suicides went down at the specific location where the barriers had been installed.

The article goes on to quote Dr. Mark Sinyor, resident physician at the University of Toronto and Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre’s psychiatry department as saying, “This research shows that constructing a barrier on a bridge with a high rate of suicide by jumping is likely to reduce or eliminate suicides at that bridge but it may not alter absolute suicide rates by jumping when there are comparable bridges nearby.”

Yes, you read that correctly. And I don’t mean to belittle the study (ok, maybe I do) but let’s try to make some analogies here. Will putting a lock on a car with a GPS system inside prevent the theft of a GPS system in an unlocked car nearby? Will living in a “dry town” Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: suicide, Suicide Barriers
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