A song of hope: Logic’s hip hop song “1-800-273-8255” linked to reducing suicides in the United States.

According to a study published in The BMJ’s Christmas edition, widespread public recognition of the song “1-800-273-8255” by American hip hop artist Logic was linked to an increase in calls to the US National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and a decrease in suicides.

The findings show that positive media stories about suicidal thoughts and seeking treatment have a protective effect, especially for groups that are difficult to reach with standard messaging.

There is strong evidence that media reporting of suicide can lead to more suicides, but less is known about the preventive benefits of stories of hope and recovery, owing to the fact that they receive far less media attention than suicide death stories.

The American hip hop musician Logic made an exception in April 2017, when he released his song “1-800-273-8255,” which prominently featured the number of the US National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

The song depicts a suicidal person dialing a helpline, which represents a turning point in their recovery and mastery of their situation.

The song peaked at number three on the Billboard charts in the United States, and it was performed at the 2017 MTV Music Awards and the 2018 Grammy Awards, garnering widespread attention.

Researchers led by Thomas Niederkrotenthaler of the Medical University of Vienna looked at the links between Logic’s song and daily calls to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline number and daily suicides in the United States to see if the song’s positive message was linked to a change in behavior.

Using Twitter posts to evaluate audience attention over a month, they discovered that there were an additional 9,915 calls to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline in the 34 days following the three events with the most public attention (the song’s release, the MTV Video Music Awards 2017, and the Grammy Awards 2018), a 6.9% increase over the expected number.

During the same time period, there were 245 suicides, or 5.5 percent fewer than projected.

Since this is an observational study, it is impossible to determine the cause, and the researchers acknowledge several limitations. For example, it’s unclear if the music had any lasting impacts outside of peak attention moments, and social media data may not accurately reflect how many people listened to it.

However, they were able to control for a number of potentially important factors, and the results remained virtually unaltered after additional analysis.

These results “emphasize the potential population health benefits of working creatively and innovatively with other sectors, such as the music and entertainment industries, to promote new impactful stories of help-seeking that resonate with broad audiences, leave a visible footprint on social media, and are safe in terms of not featuring potentially lethal actions but rather coping and mastery of crisis,” they write

“Interventions that follow these principles could help create behavioural change to increase help-seeking and prevent suicide,” they add.

The Papageno effect – the hypothesis that media stories of someone overcoming a suicidal crisis are protective against suicide – is supported by this study, argues Alexandra Pitman of University College London in a linked editorial.

She adds more research is needed to better understand the intervention’s likely mechanism of effect, but she applauds significant cultural influencers’ dedication “to help amplify public health interventions intended to strengthen protection against suicide in specific vulnerable groups.”

Source: 10.1136/bmj-2021-067726

Image Credit: Getty

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