Prevalence of and Countermeasures to Prevent Rail System Suicides

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Prevalence of and Countermeasures to Prevent Rail
System Suicides

• Alan L. Berman, Ph.D.
• Executive Director
• American Association of Suicidology

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US FRA/FTA Projects
Department of Transportation (DOT)
Federal Transit Administration (FTA)
Federal Railroad Administration (FRA)
Subcontract
Subcontract
Association of American Railroads (AAR)
Railroad Research Foundation (RRF)
American Association of Suicidology (AAS)
Subcontract
Subcontract
IEI
Blue hues indicate FRA project Greens indicate
FTA Project
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Objectives

• Obtain the first estimate of the prevalence of
  railroad suicides in U.S.
• Identify gaps in available data
• Document challenges of merging data from multiple
  sources
• Describe next steps in research design

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Logic Model
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Retrospective Prevalence Methodology

• Data Sources
• Railroads
• State records
• Newspaper articles
• Timeline
• June 1, 2006 to May 31, 2007
• Data validation with videos

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Results

• Total number of cases 338
• Freight Railroads259
• Transit Railroads 79
• State with most cases

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Impact of Preventing Suicide on Rail System
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Low Prevalence Large Impact

• Suicides on rail systems may account for 1-2 of
  all US suicides
• Public suicide Media attention
• Contagion
• Negative press on rail systems
• Disruption of traffic
• Trauma to employees, witnesses, discoverers
• Potential lessons learned -- generalizability

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Suicides by Rail System
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Gender Distribution
Transit (N57)
Freight (N123)
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Fig 3. Number of incidents by State
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Suicides by Age
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Number of Rail Suicides by Month
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Data Collection Challenges

• Availability of data
• Accessibility of data
• Willingness to share
• Ability to share
• Data format

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Suicides among Trespassers
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Other Challenges

• Incomplete record-keeping
• Confidentiality issues
• Conflicting information from different sources
• Missing data fields
• Absence of race/ethnicity information

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Next Steps

• Prospective prevalence study
• Psychological autopsy and root cause analysis
  study
• Pilot study of preventive intervention(s)

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Next Steps

• Increase number of cases increase confidence in
  conclusions
• Document the effects of rail suicide on drivers
  and other employees recommendations for
  industry
• Morbidity review of attempters to be parallel
  with studies on bridge, pills, and firearms
• Investigate topics suggested by FTA FRA to move
  the field forward develop the research base on
  rail suicide