In January 2021, Roman Family Teaching & Research Fellow in Computer Science Adam Poliak published the article "Suicide-Related Internet Searches During the Early Stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic in the US" in JAMA Network Open, an online medical journal. Poliak and his colleagues investigated the impacts of the pandemic on mental health to clarify the association behind suicides and the coronavirus pandemic. The researchers monitored suicide-related internet searches across the country, then compared them to the numbers from before the U.S. declared the novel coronavirus to be a national emergency.
Contrary to previous assumptions, their results found that suicide-related searches have decreased since the pandemic. The researchers believe this decline could be a result of the community and societal support that have been emphasized in the pandemic era, known as the "pulling together" phenomenon.