Geospatial mapping of suicide clusters

This study of suicide clusters has used spatial analytic methods to uncover important and unexpected new information to inform suicide prevention activities.

The findings imply the need for careful, informed community postvention policies and management in the aftermath of a suicide. The data challenges the common assumption that suicide clusters exclusively or predominantly involve teenagers or young people (under the age of 25). Although young people accounted for about half of cluster membership, the remaining half were aged 25 years and older. Far from being a homogeneous group of vulnerable and impressionable young people, those at risk of copycat suicide are likely to represent a number of distinctly different groups which have yet to be well-defined.

Research team: Gregory Luke Larkin and Annette L. Beautrais.