Center for Public Health (Department of Social and Preventive Medicine)
Position: Professor
ORCID: 0000-0001-9550-628X
T +43 1 40160 34611
thomas.niederkrotenthaler@meduniwien.ac.at
Keywords
Communications Media; Health Promotion; Mass Media; Mental Health; Mental Health Services; Suicide
Research group(s)
- Wiener Werkstätte for Suicide Research
Members: - Unit Suicide Research & Mental Health Promotion
Head: Thomas Niederkrotenthaler
Research Area: epidemiology, causes and influencing factors as well as the prevention of suicidal behaviour and mental illness
Members:
Research interests
Suicide prevention research; health communication; media & suicide (Werther and Papageno effects); mental resilience; positive psychology.Suicide prevention research as it relates to media portrayals and communication about suicide and mental health has been my main working area for 17 years. I have been leading related evaluation research as well as the development of media-specific recommendations for the portrayal of suicide and mental health nationally and internationally. I have been first to describe a suicide-preventive effect of stories of lived experience of suicidal thoughts and feelings and mastery of crisis, the Papageno effect. I have guided related content analyses, randomized controlled trials, and populationbased studies including time series studies which have been instrumental in international developments in the field.
Techniques, methods & infrastructure
Content analysis, cohort studies, case-control studies, cross-sectional analysis, survey studies, machine learning, RCTs
Grants
- Effects of "It Gets Better Videos" for LGBQ Adolescents (2017)
Source of Funding: FWF (Austrian Science Fund), Stand alone projects
Principal Investigator - Suicide Prevention Public Service Announcements (PSAs) Targeting Adolescents: A Randomized Controlled Trial (2017)
Source of Funding: FWF (Austrian Science Fund), Programme Clinical Research (KLIF)
Principal Investigator
Selected publications
- Niederkrotenthaler, T. et al. (2020) ‘Association between suicide reporting in the media and suicide: systematic review and meta-analysis’, BMJ, p. m575. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m575.
- Niederkrotenthaler, T. et al. (2021) ‘Association of Logic’s hip hop song “1-800-273-8255” with Lifeline calls and suicides in the United States: interrupted time series analysis’, BMJ, p. e067726. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2021-067726.
- Niederkrotenthaler, T. et al. (2022) ‘Effects of media stories of hope and recovery on suicidal ideation and help-seeking attitudes and intentions: systematic review and meta-analysis’, The Lancet Public Health, 7(2), pp. e156–e168. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/s2468-2667(21)00274-7.
- Niederkrotenthaler, T. et al. (2019) ‘Association of Increased Youth Suicides in the United States With the Release of13 Reasons Why’, JAMA Psychiatry, 76(9), p. 933. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2019.0922.
- Niederkrotenthaler, T. et al., 2010. Role of media reports in completed and prevented suicide: Werther v. Papageno effects. British Journal of Psychiatry, 197(03), pp.234-243. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1192/bjp.bp.109.074633.