Many studies tout interventions as effective when all that was observed was a rise in self-reported desire to learn more about how to reduce suicide or general knowledge about it; there is scant evidence that most suicide prevention strategies are effective, and the public doesn’t know

McCaffree, Kevin. 2023. “Pulling Back the Curtain on Suicide Research: Understanding Why People Die by Suicide Is a Harder Problem to Solve Than Most Social Scientists Admit.” SocArXiv. August 13. https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/vs8f4

Abstract

Suicide researchers often present their research in misleading ways to the public. In this short piece, I pull back the curtain on this behavior and explore why it might occur, and what might be done to improve our knowledge on this critically important issue.