Suicide loss in the modern era: An exploration of digital suicide loss obituaries

The unfortunate increase of suicides in the modern era has provided a vast body of obituaries ripe for analysis. We analyzed 52 suicide loss obituaries retrieved from Legacy.com, an online obituary aggregator, to determine how they differ from what we know about traditional obituaries and suicide reporting. These suicide obituaries combined emotional appeals with educational components to address its social stigma. By doing this, authors personalized the public health issues related to suicide by sharing lived experiences, but by also encouraging open conversations about such a taboo topic.