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on Toronto's Prince Edward Viaduct has prevented jumping suicides from occurring there, but has likely driven people to commit suicide at other bridges in the city.
barrier atop the Empire State Building in New York]] A suicide barrier is a structure intended to deter people from attempting suicide by deliberately jumping from a high place on a structure. Suicide barriers often consist of nets, metal screening, and fencing. Suicide barriers may be placed on tall (such as those deemed ""), observation deck, and other tall structures.
Suicide barriers may be erected for a variety of purposes beyond saving the lives of those attempting suicide. They are commonly used on pedestrian bridges that cross over train tracks or highways to prevent injury to other members of the public caused by jumping suicides and to keep transportation systems functioning efficiently. Similar reasoning is often cited for their use in Rapid transit. Suicide barriers have been employed to prevent trauma in neighbors who live in close proximity to jumping suicide hotspots, as has been done in cities such as Seattle. Media attention associated with jumping has also figured into the decision to install barriers in certain locations that wish to avoid association of their building or landmark with suicides.
Glass barriers have been deployed in some places to provide greater transparency and visual appeal. After an imposing fence was removed on the Grafton Bridge of Auckland, New Zealand, jumping suicides increased, and a glass barrier was installed.
Suicide barriers also include nets that extend from the structure or hang below it in order to preserve views outward. Suicide nets have been used on the Bern Muenster Terrace in Bern, Switzerland, and the Cornell University campus in Ithaca, New York. In January 2024, a suicide prevention net was installed on the full length of the Golden Gate Bridge. The net consists of a stainless steel mesh suspended 20 feet below the sidewalk and out 20 feet over the water.
Many studies have shown that well-designed suicide barriers stop people from jumping at a particular site, but no study has found the overall suicide rate within an area decreased significantly after a barrier went up as a result of that barrier. The effect of a suicide barrier on local jumping suicide rates has been mixed. Additionally, unlike guns, access to suicide or landmark bridges has not been found to be associated with higher overall suicide rates in Switzerland or the U.S.
Some case studies and large-scale studies are summarized below.
A longer-term study of the Bloor Street Viaduct released in 2017 highlighted that there had only been one suicide on the Bloor Street Viaduct in the 11 years after the barrier went up, and there was a statistically significant decrease in suicide on bridges in Toronto in the 11 years after the barrier went up when adjusted for changes in the population. This led the authors, who had hypothesized that the barrier would work, to declare the barrier to be having an impact. However, the study could not rule out that suicides were being displaced to other sites or other means. The report notes there was not a significant difference between the jumping suicide rate in Toronto in the 11 years before and after the barrier went up (57.0/year before and 51.3/year after when corrected for population increases), so it cannot be concluded that site substitution did not take place. The small number of suicides by jumping also makes it impossible to determine whether other means were being substituted. As the authors note, the study may also be subject to an ecological fallacy, as this was a natural experiment and the two populations being compared may not be comparable. While correcting for the increase in population, the authors have not corrected for changes to Toronto's foreign-born population. Toronto experienced massive foreign-born immigration during the period of the study, and Canadian immigrants have suicide rates half those of Canadian-born.
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