By Maddie Bender, Photo: Alex Hogan/STAT, STAT, December 13, 2021
During the time that a song whose title is the number of a national suicide prevention helpline topped charts, calls to the helpline increased and suicides decreased, a new study shows. The song, “1-800-273-8255,” depicts a fictitious exchange between someone expressing suicidal thinking and an operator of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline who counsels a person and ultimately changes that person’s mind.
Leaders of the Lifeline and researchers who study suicide and media co-authored the study, which was published on Monday in the British Medical Journal. They found that three major events — the song’s release, the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards, and the 2018 Grammy Awards — were correlated with increases in calls to the helpline and, overall, a significant reduction in suicides.
Josh Dominguez, 22, of California, said he was one of the people represented in that statistic. A longtime fan of Logic, the artist behind the song, Dominguez said he listened to “1-800-273-8255” shortly after its release in April 2017, when he was dealing with a recent breakup and the emotions of graduating from high school.
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