Media still promote holiday-suicide myth

Reports and Proceedings

Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania

December 8, 2025

During the year-end holiday season, the suicide rate declines, U.S. health statistics show. The month of December typically has the year’s lowest average daily suicide rate. And yet each year at this time, some news publications repeat the persistent but incorrect belief that suicides rise around the holidays.

The Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania has been tracking this phenomenon for more than two decades, since the 1999-2000 holiday season. Last year, during the 2024-25 holiday season, December was again the lowest month in the average number of daily suicides. But a search of print news media through the 2024-25 holiday season finds stories propagating the myth.

Over the last holiday season, an APPC media analysis finds 19 stories in print media outlets that spread the false myth that suicides increase during the holidays. Those stories were outweighed in their reach by 82 stories debunking the myth, but there’s an important caveat – 80 of those stories were republications of one single column that was reprinted by different news outlets.

“Long-standing efforts to reduce suicide in the United States have included recommendations for journalists about reducing misleading information about suicide,” said APPC Research Director Dan Romer. “Ever since 2001, when APPC worked with public health agencies and private organizations to develop these recommendations, we have been alerting the journalism community to the widespread, mistaken belief that the holiday season is linked to increased suicide risk.

“This year,” Romer continued, “we were gratified to learn that in our review of last year’s suicide reporting over the holiday period, a preponderance of stories corrected this myth.”

In the 26 years APPC has been studying this phenomenon, most years have seen more stories repeating the myth than debunking it. In only 10 of those years (38%) have there been more stories debunking it.

As we’ve noted before, the media are not the only ones who regularly get it wrong. In a nationally representative survey APPC conducted in 2023, 4 out of 5 adults incorrectly picked December over several other months as the “time of year in which the largest number of suicides occur” – even though the other months typically have much higher suicide rates.

Associating the holidays with suicide

Some of the newspaper accounts supporting the myth last holiday season quoted local authority figures:

• A Dec. 12, 2024, story in The Capital Gazette (Annapolis, Md.) about a police event to have people voluntarily turn in firearms and ammunition, took note of the holiday season “when police said domestic violence and suicides typically rise.”

• In a Miami Times story (Nov. 19, 2024) about Miami-Dade security officers seeking better wages and working conditions, a security officer said: “‘Many people don’t know that we have a suicide season in Miami-Dade County,’ he said, referring to the months of October through late January. ‘We deal with overdoses, we deal with dead bodies, we deal with de-escalations, we deal with mental patients.’”

• In an article in the Fremont (Neb.) Tribune on Nov. 23, 2024, the Dodge County Sheriff’s Office noted: “Tragically, the period between Thanksgiving and New Year’s has historically seen a rise in suicides and suicide attempts, often due to factors like loneliness, financial pressures, family conflict or grief.”

Our media analysis also found examples of stories that debunked the myth. Among these:

• A story in Florida Today (Dec. 22, 2024), discussed the relative increase in mental health-related calls to an emergency phone line in Brevard County, Fla., over the Thanksgiving weekend, but noted that overall call volume was down, and that the “holiday suicide myth” is just that – a myth. The story quoted from APPC’s holiday suicide myth data.

• In a widely published column that ran in the Rapid City Journal (S.D.) on Dec. 16, 2024, “10 tools for dealing with holiday depression and stress,” and in 79 other publications, Dr. Barton Goldsmith wrote: “There has been a long-standing myth that suicide rates increase over the holiday season. According to the Mayo Clinic this is completely false.”

The seasonal nature of the suicide rate

CDC data show that the months with the lowest average daily suicide rates are typically in the fall and winter: November, December, and January.

In 2024, the last full year for which CDC data are available, December had the lowest average daily suicide rate – it was 12th among the months, November was 11th, October was 10th, and January was 9th. Summer months had the highest rates, August (1st) and July (2nd).

Researchers have found that this seasonal pattern holds true in the southern hemisphere, where winter months like June and July have lower suicide rates, just as the winter months do in the United States. Discussing the data from Australia, Romer has noted that it “helps to explain the lower suicide rate we see here in December – it’s mostly due to the onset of the winter season. Psychologically, because of the shorter and gloomier days of winter in the U.S., we tend to associate them with suicide. But that’s not what happens in reality.”

The holiday blues and recommendations for journalists

Romer noted that many stories at this time of year focus on the holiday blues. “People may feel sadness around the holidays for various reasons, but they should not get the false impression that this sadness has led to a higher suicide rate,” Romer said. “Suicide prevention requires accurate reporting about its rates without sensationalizing the risks. This recommendation for journalists was based on the risk of suicide contagion, which is a documented phenomenon.”

The national recommendations for reporting on suicide, developed by journalism, mental health, public health, and suicide-prevention groups along with the Annenberg Public Policy Center, advise journalists not to promote information that can increase contagion, such as reports of epidemics or seasonal increases, especially when the claim has no basis in fact.

Journalists seeking to help dispel the holiday-suicide myth can provide valuable resources for readers who are in or know of someone who is in a potential crisis, including those at the Suicide Prevention Resource Center, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, or SAMHSA.

Not enough people know about 988

U.S. public health officials rolled out a new initiative to help vulnerable people in July 2022, rebranding the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline as the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline and implementing 988 as its three-digit nationwide phone number. APPC surveys show that familiarity with 988 has grown slowly and that far too few people are aware of it.

A nationally representative APPC panel survey in August 2025 finds that just 12% of U.S. adults can remember the 988 suicide lifeline number without prompts. While knowledge of the number has increased significantly from 8% in January 2023, the August 2025 number is statistically unchanged from last year. Another 1% said the lifeline number is 911, and 3% said it is 811. Over three-quarters of respondents (79%) say they do not know the number.

“The help that can be found at the 988 helpline can only save lives if those in need and their loved ones and friends know the number,” reiterated Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center.  “When 988 is as readily recalled as 911, the nation will have cause to celebrate.”

Romer added: “The holiday myth diverts attention from the fact that suicide is a far greater risk at other times of the year. Efforts to be aware of those risks without sensationalizing its seasonality is a challenge, but it’s one that can be met by educating people about the suicide hotline throughout the year. Rather than sensationalizing the risk over the holidays, media outlets should help those at risk and their families identify sources of help.”

How we conducted this media study

News and feature stories linking suicide with the holidays were identified through searches of the LexisNexis and NewsBank databases combining the term “suicide” with words such as “holiday,” “Christmas” and “New Years,” (with the addition of terms such as “increase” in NewsBank) from November 15, 2024, through January 31, 2025. Researchers determined whether the stories supported the link, debunked it, or made a coincidental reference. Stories with a coincidental reference were eliminated. Only domestic suicides were counted.

Chidi Nwogbaga, research coordinator for APPC’s Annenberg Health and Risk Communication Institute (AHRCI), which is directed by Patrick E. Jamieson, supervised the coding of the stories, working with Lauren Hawkins, AHRCI’s assistant director. The coding was done by Penn students Meghan McGlinchey, Elizabeth Collins, Désirée Dufort, and Dylan Walker, who are undergraduate researchers at AHRCI. APPC research analyst Shawn Patterson created the data figures.

The Annenberg Public Policy Center was established in 1993 to educate the public and policy makers about communication’s role in advancing public understanding of political, science, and health issues at the local, state, and federal levels.