# Phillips 1974 publishes statistical evidence of suicide suggestion later named the Werther effect

Date: 1974

## The fact

In 1974 David Phillips published evidence that publicised suicides are followed by rises in suicide counts, a pattern later textbooks and WHO suicide-reporting guidance call the Werther effect after [Goethe](/people/johann-wolfgang-von-goethe)’s novel. This Fact stores that modern public-health naming and finding. It is not a 1774 death register.

## Context

A 1774 novel can be a literary good and a later template for harmful reporting. WHO media guidance still uses the label. Confidence on 1774 deaths remains low; confidence on the 1974 paper existing is high.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is not the sole author of every later object, law, or museum label that uses the name. Shared work with courts, excavators, printers, spouses, officials, and later states does not erase a documented role, and it does not make an ancient person the signer of a twentieth-century statute.

## Evidence and sources

PubMed’s record of Phillips 1974 and WHO’s suicide fact sheet independently document the named effect. They are not Weimar parish books.

Official or archival record: Phillips 1974 — suggestion and suicide (Werther effect) (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/4815901/; PubMed / American Sociological Review).

## Significance

Health-capacity path via harmful suggestion. Medium confidence on magnitude, high on the labelled mechanism entering public-health literature.

Do not invent 1775 suicides. Do not pretend the 1974 paper is Goethe’s diary.

## What is established and what is not

Established: later science named a contagion pattern after Werther. Not established: a Factrail headcount of 1775 copycat deaths.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit.
Later competitions, monuments, translations, UNESCO listings, and museums are not converted into extra lifetime acts. The attached driver is infectious-disease-transmission. The welfare reading used in this dossier is worsening. That reading is an impact-path choice, not a property stored on the Fact itself. Confidence is stated on the impact path. A later English edition is not a recovered autograph. If a number is not in the two records named above, it is not supplied here.

## People

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: https://factrail.ai/people/johann-wolfgang-von-goethe

## Drivers

- Infectious-Disease Transmission: https://factrail.ai/drivers/infectious-disease-transmission

## Sources

- https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/suicide
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/4815901/

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/go-werther-effect-1974