Association of Logic's hip hop song '1-800-273-8255' with Lifeline calls and suicides in the United States: interrupted time series analysis

ObjectiveTo assess changes in daily call volumes to the US National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and in suicides during periods of wide scale public attention to the song “1-800-273-8255” by American hip hop artist Logic.DesignTime series analysis.SettingUnited States, 1 January 2010 to 31 December 2018.ParticipantsTotal US population. Lifeline calls and suicide data were obtained from Lifeline and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Main outcome measuresDaily Lifeline calls and suicide data before and after the release of the song. Twitter posts were used to estimate the amount and duration of attention the song received. Seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average time series models were fitted to the pre-release period to estimate Lifeline calls and suicides. Models were fitted to the full time series with dummy variables for periods of strong attention to the song.ResultsIn the 34 day period after the three events with the strongest public attention (the song’s release, the MTV Video Music Awards 2017, and Grammy Awards 2018), Lifeline received an excess of 9915 calls (95% confidence interval 6594 to 13 236), an increase of 6.9% (95% confidence interval 4.6% to 9.2%, PConclusionsLogic’s song “1-800-273-8255” was associated with a large increase in calls to Lifeline. A reduction in suicides was observed in the periods with the most social media discourse about the song.