Study: Men Who Commit Suicide Often Have No Known History of Mental Health Issues

Study: Men Who Commit Suicide Often Have No Known History of Mental Health Issues

A majority of American men who die by suicide don’t have any known history of mental health problems, according to new research by UCLA professor Mark Kaplan  and colleagues.

“What’s striking about our study is the conspicuous absence of standard psychiatric markers of suicidality among a large number of males of all ages who die by suicide,” said Kaplan, a professor of social welfare at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.

For the study, published online in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Kaplan and his co-authors from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tracked recent suicide deaths among U.S. males aged 10 and older. They found that 60% of victims had no documented mental health conditions.

Further, males without a history of mental health issues died more frequently by firearms than those with known mental health issues, and many were found to have alcohol in their systems, the researchers noted.

The report highlights the major public health challenge of addressing suicide among males, who are far more likely to die by suicide and less likely to have known mental health conditions than females. In 2019, for instance, males accounted for 80% of all suicide deaths in the U.S., the authors said, and suicide is the eighth leading cause of death among males 10 and older.

Kaplan and his colleagues examined data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Violent Death Reporting System for the most recent three-year period available, 2016 to 2018, during which more than 70,000 American males died by suicide. More than 42,000 of them had no known mental health conditions, they found.

The researchers then compared characteristics of those with and without known mental health conditions across their life span in four age groups: adolescents (10–17 years old), young adults (18–34), middle-aged adults (35–64) and older adults (65 and older). Identifying the various factors that contribute to suicides among these groups is crucial to developing targeted suicide prevention efforts, especially outside of mental health systems, the team emphasized.

Among their findings, they discovered that across all groups, those without known mental health conditions were less likely to have had a history of contemplating or attempting suicide, or both, than those with such issues. In particular, young and middle-aged adults without known mental health conditions disclosed suicidal intent significantly less often, they said.

In addition, males with no mental health history who died by suicide in three of the four age groups — adolescents, young adults, and middle-aged men — more commonly experienced relationship problems, arguments or another type of personal crisis as precipitating circumstances than for those with prior histories.

The researchers emphasized the importance of focusing on these kinds of acute situational stressors as part of suicide prevention efforts and working to discourage the use of alcohol, drugs, and guns during times of crisis — particularly for teens and young adults, who may be more prone to act impulsively.

Kaplan and his colleagues said the findings highlight the potential benefits of strategies to create protective environments, provide support during stressful transitions, and enhance coping and problem-solving skills across the life span.

“Suicide prevention initiatives for males might benefit from comprehensive approaches focusing on age-specific stressors reported in this study, in addition to standard psychiatric markers,” the researchers wrote.

“These findings,” Kaplan said, “could begin to change views on the non–mental health factors driving up the rate of suicide among men.”

Could You Learn More By Watching a Class Video at 2x Viewing Speed? (Maybe!)

Could You Learn More By Watching a Class Video at 2x Viewing Speed? (Maybe!)

Recorded lectures have become a routine part of course instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic, and college students often try to pack more learning into a shorter span by watching these recordings at double their normal viewing speed or even faster. But does comprehension suffer as a result?

Surprisingly, no — up to a point. A new UCLA study shows that students retain information quite well when watching lectures at up to twice their actual viewing speed. But once they exceed that limit, things begin to get a little blurry, said Alan Castel, the study’s senior author and a UCLA professor of psychology.

With 85% of UCLA students surveyed as part of the study reporting they “speed-watched” lecture videos, the researchers engaged students in a series of experiments to test how faster speeds affected learning and knowledge retention.

Originally published by UCLA NewsroomBuilding Rome in less than 15 minutes

In one experiment, the researchers divided 231 UCLA undergraduates into four groups and had them watch two 13-to-15-minute lecture videos — one on the Roman Empire and another on real estate appraisals. One group watched at normal speed, one at 1.5 times normal speed, another at double speed and the final group at 2.5 times normal viewing speed. They were instructed not to pause the videos or take notes.

Immediately after the viewings, they were given comprehension tests on the individual videos, each comprising 20 multiple-choice and true-or-false questions. The normal-speed group averaged 26 correct answers out of 40, while the double-time group scored 25 (about the same as the 1.5-speed group). The 2.5-speed group didn’t do as well, answering only about 22 questions correctly.

A week later, the same groups were given different tests related to the two videos to assess what they’d retained. The normal-speed group averaged 24 out of 40, the 1.5-speed and double-speed group averaged 21, and 2.5-speed students averaged 20.

“Surprisingly, video viewing speed had little effect on both immediate and delayed comprehension until learners exceeded twice the normal speed,” said lead author Dillon Murphy, a doctoral student in psychology at UCLA.

Here’s an example of a class video at single, 1.5, and 2x viewing speeds:

Speed-test results

In other experiments, the researchers tested various combinations of speed-watching and normal-speed viewing of the two videos. Among the results:

  • Twice at double speed vs. once at normal speed
    One group of students watched the videos at double viewing speed twice in succession and another watched them just once at normal speed. Both groups answered an average of 25 of the 40 questions correctly immediately following their viewings.In a related experiment, one group watched the videos once at normal speed while another viewed them initially at double speed, then a week later at double speed again. When tested a week after the first group watched the videos (and shortly after the second group viewed the videos a second time), the speed-watchers performed better, averaging 24 out of 40, versus 22 for the one-time, normal-speed group.
  • Switching speeds
    A group that watched the videos at normal speed, then at double speed, scored slightly better immediately after their viewings than a group that watched at double speed, then normal speed — 26 vs. 24, a difference Murphy said was not statistically significant. When two other testing groups followed the same viewing procedure and were quizzed a week after watching, they both scored 25.

People generally speak at a rate of about 150 words per minute, and previous research has shown that comprehension begins to decline as speech approaches double viewing speed — about 275 words per minute, Castel noted.

He and Murphy said they were surprised and impressed that students could learn, and retain knowledge, at some of the faster speeds.

“College students can save time and learn more efficiently by watching pre-recorded lectures at faster viewing speeds if they use the time saved for additional studying, but they shouldn’t exceed double the normal playback speed,” Murphy said. “While our study didn’t reveal significant drawbacks to watching lecture videos at up to double the normal speed, we caution against using this strategy to simply save time. Students can enhance learning if they spend the time saved on activities such as reviewing flashcards or taking practice tests.”

The strategy of speeding up videos may not be effective with especially complex or difficult course material, the researchers noted.

The research is published online in the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology. Co-authors of the study are UCLA psychology graduate student Karina Agadzhanyan and former UCLA psychology undergraduates Kara Hoover and Jesse Kuehn.

mRNA Jabs Reduced Healthcare Personnel Covid Risk by 89-96%

mRNA Jabs Reduced Healthcare Personnel Covid Risk by 89-96%

COVID-19 vaccines are highly effective in preventing symptomatic illness among health care workers in real-world settings.

The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that health care personnel who received a two-dose regimen of Pfizer–BioNTech vaccine had an 89% lower risk for symptomatic illness than those who were unvaccinated. For those who received the two-dose regimen of the Moderna vaccine, the risk was reduced by 96%.

The researchers also found that the vaccines appeared to work just as well for people who are over age 50, are in racial or ethnic groups that have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19, have underlying medical conditions and have greater exposure to patients with COVID-19.

The vaccines’ effectiveness was, however, lower in immunocompromised people.

“That this study demonstrated the effectiveness of the Pfizer–BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines to protect health care workers — people who worked tirelessly and at great potential risk to care for their friends and neighbors — is a major statement to address any remaining skepticism about the importance of everyone getting vaccinated,” said Dr. David Talan, a professor of emergency medicine and of medicine and infectious diseases at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and the study’s co-lead author.

The project, Preventing Emerging Infections through Vaccine Effectiveness Testing, or PREVENT, was conducted with researchers from the University of Iowa’s Carver College of Medicine. The study evaluated nearly 5,000 health care workers — 1,482 who had tested positive for COVID-19 and displayed symptoms of the disease and 3,449 who had COVID-19–like symptoms but had tested negative for the disease. The participants were from 33 U.S. academic medical centers, including Olive View–UCLA Medical Center in Sylmar, California.

All of the participants completed surveys covering their demographic information, job type and risk factors for severe disease from COVID-19, as well as their vaccination status.

Other findings include:

  • A two-dose regimen of either of the mRNA vaccines reduced the risk of illness by 95% among Black and African American people, 89% among Hispanic people, 89% among Asian or Pacific Islander people, and 94% among American Indians and Alaskan Native people, compared to unvaccinated people.
  • Of all those who received a single dose of either of the two-dose mRNA vaccines, the risk of illness was reduced by 86% among Black and African American people, 82% among Hispanic people, 80% among Asian or Pacific Islander people, and 76% among American Indians and Alaskan Native people compared to unvaccinated people.
  • For people who are obese or overweight, a two-dose regimen reduced the risk of illness by 91%; among the same group, partial vaccination reduced the risk by 76% among partially vaccinated compared to unvaccinated.
  • For people who have hypertension, a two-dose regimen of either mRNA vaccine reduced the risk of illness by 92%, and partial vaccination reduced the risk by 83% among partially vaccinated compared to unvaccinated.
  • For people who have asthma, a two-dose regimen of either mRNA vaccine reduced the risk of illness by 91%, and partial vaccination reduced the risk by 78% among partially vaccinated compared to unvaccinated.
  • For immunocompromised people, the risk of illness was reduced by 39% whether they received a single dose or two doses of either mRNA vaccine.
  • Sixty-two people in the study were pregnant at the time they were surveyed. Vaccination was 77% effective in preventing symptomatic COVID-19 illness among pregnant people who had received at least one dose of one of the mRNA vaccines.

Because of the relatively short time period of the study — from December 2020 to May 2021 — the research does not address how long vaccines continue to provide protection against COVID-19. In addition, data was collected before the emergence of the delta variant, so the vaccines’ effectiveness today may be different than they would be against earlier variants.

PREVENT is a collaboration between EMERGEncy ID NET — a CDC-supported network led by Talan that comprises 12 U.S. emergency departments and focuses on studying emerging infectious diseases — and a previously assembled group of sites that worked under Project COVERED, another CDC-funded effort to assess the risk to emergency department providers of acquiring COVID-19 through direct contact with patients and to determine ways to mitigate that risk.

New Study: Covid-19 Shaved Up to 8 Years From Average Lifespan

New Study: Covid-19 Shaved Up to 8 Years From Average Lifespan

At its peak, COVID-19 drastically reduced the average human lifespan — by as much as nine years in one U.S. state — according to a new longevity metric developed at UCLA. 

Sociology professor Patrick Heuveline devised the metric, called the mean unfulfilled lifespan, to assess the impact of temporary “shocks” like the novel coronavirus on average length of life. To date, the pandemic has claimed the lives of more than 4.2 million people worldwide.    

The tool allows demographers to conduct fine-grained analyses in specific regions over various periods of time, offering a new and more dynamic way of gauging how different areas of the country and the world experience decreases in lifespans over the course of the pandemic, Heuveline said.

Heuveline’s analysis, published online  in the open-access journal PLOS One, suggests, for example, that as COVID-19 peaked in New Jersey in mid-April 2020, the average lifespan in the state plummeted by almost nine years, the most dramatic example from the U.S.

UCLA sociologist Patrick Heuveline
UCLA sociologist Patrick Heuveline

Demographers typically calculate lifespan using a metric known as period life expectancy at birth, or PLEB, which is the average number of years a person born at a certain time would be expected to live if future death rates remained at present levels. When researchers factor in the impacts of a given cause of death — a steady increase in heart attacks or car accidents, for instance — they see how these factors can reduce PLEB.

However, calculating changes to life expectancy in this way cannot adequately capture the effect of large, temporary shocks like natural disasters or the COVID-19 pandemic, in which mortality conditions are rapidly shifting, Heuveline said.

To more clearly illustrate the impact of such phenomena, Heuveline’s mean unfulfilled lifespan measures the difference between the average age at death of individuals who died within a given time frame and the average age these people would have been expected to reach had there not been a temporary shock.

“As did a few other demographers, I initially tried to convey the mortality impact of COVID-19 by assessing how much life expectancies would decline during the pandemic,” he said. “When mortality conditions are continuously changing, however, life expectancies are hard to interpret, and I wanted to provide a more intuitive indicator of that mortality impact.” 

► Read about Patrick Heuveline’s previous research on COVID-19 and life expectancy.

Heuveline demonstrated the mean unfulfilled lifespan by applying it to COVID-19 mortality data from regions with similarly sized populations, including New Jersey, Mexico City, Lombardy in Italy, and Lima, Peru. He compared decreases in life expectancy by calendar quarter (from March 31, 2020 to March 31, 2021) and using rolling seven-day windows (from March 15 to June 15, 2020). The latter analysis suggested that the mean unfulfilled lifespan peaked at 8.91 years in New Jersey, 6.24 years in in Mexico City, 6.43 years in Lombardy and 2.67 in Lima. 

In addition, his study found that during the month of April 2020, the mean unfulfilled lifespan may have reached 12.7 years in the Guayas province of Ecuador.

Heuveline noted that uncertainties in calculating mean unfulfilled lifespan may arise from potential differences between deaths related to temporary shocks like the pandemic and actual or excess deaths — differences that, when accounted for, may push the peak unfulfilled lifespan figures seen in the study even higher. His analysis demonstrates how these issues can be factored into calculations.

Heuveline said he hopes the new metric will eventually be applied broadly as researchers seek to better understand the impact of epidemics, natural disasters and even violence on life expectancy.