How Blue Lights on Train Platforms Combat Tokyo’s Suicide Epidemic

Light therapy is a common treatment for seasonal affective disorder and depression. Just speculating, but this sounds like a public health version of that, something like adding iodine to salt or fluoride to drinking water.

From Article: "84 percent decrease in suicides at stations with the blue lights."

> Often these days, you can substitute "How" with "That."

Not really; the uses of "how" -- which aren't really substitutes for "that" -- that don't address a mechanism by which an effect is achieved but either the manner in which it manifests or the degree to which it manifests (the latter being essentially the same as phrase "how much", though the "much" is often left out) are both centuries old and in continuous, common use.

The article is not about merely "That the lights reduce suicide" but "How [much] the lights reduce suicide". Which is a long-established, not novel, use of "How", despite being distinct from another potential meaning of "how", "By what mechanism did the lights reduce suicide."

http://articles.latimes.com/2007/nov/09/world/fg-autopsy9

"Photos of the teenager's corpse show a deep cut on his right arm, horrific bruising on his neck and chest. His face is swollen and covered with cuts. A silhouette of violence runs from the corner of his left eye over the cheekbone to his jaw, and his legs are pocked with small burns the size of a lighted cigarette.

But police in Japan's Aichi prefecture saw something else when they looked at the body of Takashi Saito, a 17-year-old sumo wrestler who arrived at a hospital in June. The cause of death was "heart disease," police declared.

As is common in Japan, Aichi police reached their verdict on how Saito died without an autopsy. No need for a coroner, they said. No crime involved. Only 6.3% of the unnatural deaths in Aichi are investigated by a medical examiner, a minuscule rate even by nationwide standards in Japan, where an autopsy is performed in 11.2% of cases."

It's comments like yours, which make HN interesting. Even if the upcoming questions are of rather idiosyncratic nature.

I assume that the C line stations equipped with those bands are the ones up north (thanks for the addition). I have to admit that I never made it that far.

As a side note. The general design of the Prague metro stations are pretty awesome (well, most of them anyway). The "bubble" design of the older A metro stations is almost iconic.

Really a testament to Czech design in my view.

Thanks again for the insight.

Also, on the suicide rate, seems like Japan is a ways down the list at 9th place with a rate of 28.2 per 100,000 (for years 1985 - 2015) [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r...