David Lester: A Prodigious Researcher in Suicidology

Abstract

In the last 30 years there has been an exponential increase in research on suicidal behaviors. A major contributor to this has been David Lester. Indeed, his productivity has been, and continues to be, quite phenomenal. He has published over 2,000 papers and reports in no fewer than 158 American journals and 47 journals from other countries; his work has appeared in eight languages other than English; he has written or edited 78 books; and he has served on the Editorial Boards of a number of American and international journals. David Lester was born in England in 1942, and his initial Bachelor Degree was completed with scholarships at Cambridge University. He then attended Brandeis University in the United States where he completed his Masters degree and a Doctorate of Philosophy in Psychology. After brief periods of teaching at Wellesley College in Massachusetts and directing a research program at a Suicide Prevention and Crisis Service in Buffalo in New York State, in 1971 he became Professor of Psychology at Richard Stockton College in Pomona, New Jersey, and he has remained there to the present time. He has used that as a base from which he has pursued research covering a broad range of issues, primarily those associated with suicidal behavior, but also some related to criminology, economics, feminism, and religion. Much of Lester’s work is based on data obtained from official government records, rather than as a result of specifically designed research proposals to test hypotheses. However, publicly available official statistics are very amenable to test certain hypotheses, and it is important that they are utilized and scrutinized in the manner in which Lester has done. For example, he has provided valuable insights into the relationship between prescription rates of medication and suicide (Lester, 1994); the economy and suicide (Lester & Yang, 1997); the use of motor vehicle exhaust, carbon monoxide poisoning for suicide (Lester, 1989); the effect of firearms legislation on suicide (Leenaars et al., 2003); and the impact of suicide prevention centers on suicide rates (Lester, 1997). Indeed, in regard to the latter research, since his early work at the Crisis Service in Buffalo he has analyzed not only the overall influence of suicide prevention centers, but also the nature of the therapeutic contact that telephone counseling can provide (Lester, 1974). He has also provided scholarly reviews of important topics such as the significance of neurotransmitter metabolites in the cerebro-spinal fluid of suicidal persons (Lester, 1995); the use of the dexamethasone suppression test as a potential indicator for suicide (Lester, 1992); and twin studies in suicidal behavior (Lester, 2002). It is fair to note that although he was President of the International Association for Suicide Prevention between 1991 and 1995, his main influence has not been in the political arena of organizations. Rather, it can be measured not only by his own publications, but perhaps even more so by his encouragement of and cooperation with researchers from a number of other countries. Thus, in addition to cooperating with 46 coauthors from the United States, Lester has published work with 74 colleagues in no fewer than 34 other countries. This has included work with researchers in countries literally from A to Z, from Austria through Cuba, India, Kuwait, the Philippines, and Turkey to Zimbabwe. This involvement has been important from two points of view. First, it has enabled the world to examine data from countries where the awareness of the problem of suicide, let alone suicide research, has sometimes not been well recognized, and it has also provided the impetus for researchers in those countries to promote their own clinical and research programs. Examples of his cooperative work include papers on suicide in Zimbabwe (Lester & Wilson, 1988), in Hungarian gypsies (Zonda