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Clusters of Suicidal Events Among Young People: Do Clusters from One Time Period Predict Later Clusters?
Author(s) -
Too Lay San,
Pirkis Jane,
Milner Allison,
Robinson Jo,
Spittal Matthew J.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
suicide and life‐threatening behavior
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.544
H-Index - 90
eISSN - 1943-278X
pISSN - 0363-0234
DOI - 10.1111/sltb.12460
Subject(s) - cluster (spacecraft) , suicide prevention , poison control , demography , injury prevention , human factors and ergonomics , harm , psychological intervention , occupational safety and health , period (music) , medicine , psychiatry , medical emergency , psychology , geography , social psychology , sociology , physics , pathology , computer science , acoustics , programming language
We sought to compare clusters of suicidal events between two different time periods and examine the extent to which earlier clusters predict later clusters. We included data on suicides and suicide attempts from New South Wales between July 2001 and June 2012 and Western Australia between January 2000 and December 2011. Suicide attempts included admissions to hospital for deliberate self‐harm and suicides were deaths due to deliberate self‐harm. We combined data on suicides and suicide attempts and grouped them into two equal time periods. We detected clusters in each period using Poisson discrete scan statistics adjusted for socio‐economic status. We estimated the predictive values of earlier clusters on later clusters. The results showed that clusters from earlier time period had a moderate power (36%) in predicting later clusters. During the later time period, some additional cluster areas (14%) were found and some earlier cluster areas subsided (64%). Historical clusters predict 36% of the subsequent clusters, which is probably not sufficient for targeting interventions. Our study highlights the need for other strategies to detect emerging clusters, for example, up‐to‐date data.