THE BOONDOGGLE IN RESEARCH, INCLUDING SUICIDE RESEARCH
David Lester
There was a senator from Wisconsin,
William Proxmire (1915-2005), who agitated against government wasteful
spending. He instituted a Gold Fleece Award in which he would highlight
research projects that seemed useless (such as $84,000 for a study on why
people fall in love).
This entry in my blog is about this
topic in suicide research. A friend of mine is a firefighter/EMT (she is
Katie’s sister for those of you who know my book Katie’s Diary), and she
suggested we work on suicides among firefighters. I began a review of what has
been written, and I found that almost all articles calculate that firefighters
have a low suicide rate (SMRs less than one).
Of course, at the personal level, the
suicide by any colleague can be distressing, and certainly organizations of
firefighters have expressed concern about suicide in their ranks, as should any
guild or union. There are occupations for which the suicide rate is very high. Stack
(2001) reported that dentists, artists, machinists, auto-mechanics and
carpenters had high suicide rates.
Therefore,
it is surprising to find government-funded research on mild suicidal behaviour
(ideation and attempts) among firefighters. For example, a grant from Office of the Assistant Secretary of
Defense for Health Affairs was used in part to fund a study which found that a
history of physical and sexual abuse was more often found in suicidal
firefights than in non-suicidal fighters (Hom, et al., 2016). This is an
association that has long been known and well-documented. The research was also
used to test Joiner’s theory of suicide in this group, and whether this
research is a valid test of Joiner’s theory is another issue (see Lester,
2013). Joiner’s theory can be tested (and has been) in any group of
individuals, undergraduate students are as a good a group as any, and none of
these studies are methodologically sound tests of the theory.
Recently (in 2019 and 2020), four elite
economists have died by suicide, two of whom were tenured at Harvard
University.
There will be no government grants to study suicide in elite, white males. The
American Economic Association is going to have to fund any research on the
topic.
Of course, even funded research that
may deserve the Golden Fleece Award may by useful. It helps graduate students
pay their fees and living expenses and employs research assistants and
post-docs. And perhaps funding psychological and sociological research is
better than giving additional government funds to the DEA.
References
Hom, M. A., Matheny, N. L., Stanley, I. h., Rogers, M.
L., Cougle, J. R., & Joiner, T. E. (2016). Examining physical and sexual
abuse histories as correlates of suicide risk among firefighters. Journal. of
Traumatic Stress, 30, 672-681.
Joiner, T. E.
(2005). Why people die by suicide. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Lester, D. (Ed.) (2004). Katie’s diary: unlocking
the mystery of a suicide. New York: Brunner-Routledge.
Lester, D. (2013). Irrational thinking in
suicidal individuals. Suicidologi, 18(2),
18-21.
Stack, S. (2001). Occupation and suicide. Social
Science Quarterly, 82. 384-396.
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