Saving light, losing lives: How daylight saving time impacts deaths from suicide and substance abuse

Abstract

For the first time since 1915-1917, life expectancy in the United States fell for three consecutive years between 2015 and 2017. This was largely due to a dramatic rise in suicides and deaths from drug or alcohol overdose and abuse. In 2017 alone, more than 150,000 American died from one of these so-called "deaths of despair" (DoD), representing a six percent increase from 2016 and a more than 100% increase since 1999 (see Figure 1). All told, accidental deaths including those related to drug and alcohol overdose are now the third leading cause of death in the United States while suicide is ranked 10th. 1 This epidemic was first considered by Case and Deaton (2015, 2017. The authors, who coined the phrase "deaths of despair", specifically focus on working age, less educated, non-Hispanic white men, whom Case and Deaton show have been most impacted by DoD since the early 1990's. 2 The authors point to an increase in globalization, healthcare costs, and automation as the underlying drivers of DoD. They argue that these caused decreasing real wages and a decline in attachment to the labor market, both of which contribute to feelings of hopelessness.The initial works by Deaton (2015, 2017) have spawned a robust literature. For example, Dow et al. ( 2020) leverages state-level variation in minimum wage policies to show that a 10% increase in minimum wage reduces suicide by 2.7% but does not change substance related deaths. Monnat (2020) shows that living outside a metro area makes a person more vulnerable to these deaths, and that mortality rate growth for women is particularly concerning. Tilstra et al. (2021) shows that

The controversy over daylight saving time: evidence for and against

“…More femur fractures occur in the elderly with the start of DST [28]. Incidents of drug overdoses and suicides both show a sharp increase with the start of DST, and a mild decrease with the return to standard time [29]. One study did note an increase in alcohol use on the night of the fall transition [30], although in the year of that study the return to standard time coincided with a popular cultural event (Halloween) that is associated with alcohol use.…”

Sobre la práctica del adelanto de hora y su impacto sobre la regulación cronométrica del ánimo

“…Una multiplicidad de efectos adversos en salud ha sido detectada en consecuencia y la patología psiquiátrica no es la excepción. A destacar, se ha pesquisado un incremento en la tasa de suicidios e intoxicación por sobredosis (17) .…”

Mental health economics—Social determinants and care‐use

“…It was unclear what the effect of DST on suicides and deaths from substance abuse is. Osborne (2022) fills this gap using US mortality data, a Regression Discontinuity Design, and a fixed‐effect model. He discovers that the spring transition causes suicides and deaths from substance abuse to rise by over 6%.…”

“…In contrast, there is no change for the fall transition. Thus, Osborne (2022) provides further evidence that it would be advisable to remain on DST all year.…”