Dr. David Shaffer Comments on Suicide Contagion

(October 21, 2009)  

Police said they are "horrified" that another teenager has taken his own life on train tracks near a Palo Alto high school where a cluster of teen suicides has been making national headlines… Dr. David Shaffer of Columbia University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute agrees with Palo Alto police about not releasing much information to the media. "The best newspaper policy is to make the story as small as inconspicuous as possible and to give very few details about the individual," Shaffer, an expert on suicide clusters, wrote in an e-mail interview. He suggested a few other practical suggestions at limiting the number of suicides. A detailed map should be drawn up to show exactly where the suicides are occurring, and then fencing should go up directly in that area. He also suggested that the school district survey everyone in the sixth grade and older if they have ever thought about suicide…

  

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