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Announcements

  • Center of Excellence for Suicide Prevention of the Veterans Integrated Service Networks (VISN2) announces postdoctoral fellowship positions

    Center of Excellence for Suicide Prevention of the Veterans Integrated Service Networks (VISN2) announces postdoctoral fellowship positions
    Physicians, psychologists and associated health professionals committed to careers in suicide prevention research are invited to apply. The fellowship is focused on the rigorous translation of scientific findings into practice and consists of two years of training with stipend and benefits for qualified trainees, with the potential for a third year of training. Fellows will devote the majority of their time to patient-oriented research and education activities, complemented with 25% direct patient clinical care in programs relevant to their research. Respond to Deborah A. King, PhD, at 585-393-7950 or by email.

    For more information:

  • National Network to Eliminate Disparities (NNED) in Behavioral Health presents webinar on social media strategies for children’s mental health, Wednesday, July 11, 2012, 2:00 - 3:00 pm ET

    Developing a Social Media Strategy for Children’s Mental Health will focus on developing social media strategies for organizations, communities or system of care development efforts. Taking a strategy development perspective, attendees will learn critical questions to ask and be able to decide what specific platform(s) to use. A toolkit that assists in developing a comprehensive social media plan will be provided.

    For more information

  • Lifeline accepting submissions for My Lifeline video gallery

    This fall Lifeline will replace the Lifeline Gallery with a new video gallery on YouTube. The My Lifeline video gallery will feature personal stories from people who have called and been helped by the Lifeline. Submissions are currently being accepted for brief videos (30 sec – 2 min) of personal stories that will inspire others to contact the Lifeline when they are in crisis. Lifeline also plans to feature videos from suicide prevention advocates, suicide attempt survivors and suicide loss survivors.


    For more information

News

National News

  • Panetta calls rise in military suicide ‘troubling and tragic’

    Speaking at the annual departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs conference on suicide in the military, Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta told attendees that the Pentagon must place the “mental fitness” of troops on an equal footing with their physical fitness. Panetta noted that the numbers of military suicides “continue to move in a troubling and tragic direction” and said that he wants to make the Department of Defense a “game-changing innovator” on research in areas related to suicide prevention. The Secretary of Defense also called on military leadership to encourage troops showing signs of stress to seek help.

    Jun 22, 2012


    The Washington Post

    Read the full text of Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta’s speech 

  • Study seeks better understanding of suicide

    A new Marine Corps study will use psychological autopsy techniques to gather enhanced information about the 37 active-duty Marines who died by suicide in 2010. Researchers will examine medical records, death reports, toxicology results, personnel records, and other resources, and will also conduct interviews of close family members, friends, and supervisors. The intent of the research is to fill in data that was not captured in military investigations to find out more about what was going on in each Marine’s life at the time of death. “We want to find out what is knowable, what is known and what can be informative in the aggregate to help develop programs for prevention,” said researcher Alan Berman, executive director of the American Association of Suicidology.

    Jun 22, 2012

    Military Times

  • Key to suicide prevention may lie in subgroup analysis

    Nationwide suicide statistics may conceal wide variation in suicide rates among different socioeconomic and regional subgroups, according to a new series of articles just published in The Lancet. For example, the suicide rate among young men living in rural and isolated areas of Australia rose between 1997 and 2003, even as the national suicide rate fell. “If you just looked at the national rates, you would be ignoring a big problem,” said Alexandra Pitman, lead author of the Lancet article “Suicide in Young Men.” According to Pitman, “Such complexity in national and international patterns” means that “each country is forced to take a fine-grained approach to preventing [suicide].” There is a similar disparity in suicide rates between urban and rural areas in India, according to theLancet article “Suicide Mortality in India: A Nationally Representative Survey.” In 2010, the suicide rate in rural areas of India was nearly twice the urban rate. The authors of this study suggest that greater access to pesticides, which are used in many rural suicide attempts, plays a role in rural India’s higher suicide rate.

    Jun 22, 2012

    Nature Medicine

    Read the full text of the Lancet articles (free registration required)

International News

  • Suicide leading cause of death for India youths: Study

    India

    The first-ever national survey of deaths in India found that suicide is the second most common cause of death for young people in India. In 2010, 56 percent of all Indian women who died by suicide were between the ages of 15 and 29. Almost as many young women died by suicide as from complications in pregnancy and childbirth. Forty percent of men who took their own lives were in the 15-29 age bracket. Vikram Patel, a professor of international mental health who led the study, hopes that the research will help convince authorities to improve mental health care in India. According to Patel, suicide gets far less public attention in India than maternal deaths or AIDS, and many people do not have access to suicide prevention programs or care for mental illnesses. In 2010, twice as many young people in India died by suicide as died from AIDS.

    Jun 22, 2012

    Reuters