The clocks went forward in the USA and will go forward in most countries in Europe in a couple of days. The ritual of switching between Daylight Savings Time (DST) and standard time has been an ongoing practice in many countries for almost a century. Yet, in the past few years, the debates on whether the ritual is necessary and its possible devastating consequences have been intensifying.
“Suicides Before, During, and After Daylight Savings Time in the United States” - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/347179471_Suicides_Before_During_and_After_Daylight_Savings_Time_in_the_United_States is an excellent study designed to investigate differences in the number of suicides committed in the United States before, during, and after daylight savings time (DST).
The literature offers conflicting views and suggests both a positive and negative effect of DST in society’s physical, mental, and behavioural aspects.
This study gathers archival governmental public database data containing the total number of suicides by year and month from 2000 to 2017.
The results, unfortunately, "demonstrated a statistically significant increase in suicides during DST. Most suicides were committed during July-October (M = 74.69, SD = 68.86), compared to March-June (M = 73.56, SD = 67.89), and November-February (M = 67.00, SD = 61.41)."
It’s no wonder this study suggests eliminating DST altogether while emphasising the need for more research to determine the impact of these one hour time shifts in the Spring and Fall.
Have you experienced consequences due to DST? Do you think it should be eliminated?
Fascinating research and it's the first I've heard of this.
It must be extremely hard to eliminate confounding variables when considering causative factors of suicide. I think this is of paramount importance and should be researched further just to ensure the pattern holds and if it does elimination of DST would be the most ethical thing to do.
Specifically interesting was atrial fibrilation and heart issues. Along with that I managed to find other research: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7302868/ which points to ischemic heart rates increasing in males and females over 60. Plus more psychoactive substance use.
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