An NIH panel recently established a prevention plan for youth suicide. | Courtesy of Shutterstock
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Amanda Rupp | Oct 7, 2016

NIH panel creates prevention plan for youth suicide

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) recently gathered an independent panel to create a 10-year plan to make progress in researching ways to prevent youth suicide within the U.S.

The panel included 29 different recommendations concerning four important concerns: improving data collection, heightening data systems, increasing analysis methods, and improving practice and research communities.

“The complexity of suicide prevention must be embraced in order to forge new research strategies,” Dr. Todd Little, workshop and panel chair and professor of educational psychology and leadership at Texas Tech University, Lubbock, said. “We must coordinate numerous surveillance systems, elevate the rigor and breadth of research methods, and build stronger collaborations among the larger policy, practice and research communities.”

The panel also attended the Pathways to Prevention Workshop March 29-30 to exchange information and create a report. This report recommends linking data from several sources, like emergency room data, state all-payer databases and electronic health records data. It also states that researchers need to make better measurements that include diverse populations as well as personal characteristics like sexual identity and orientation -- along with certain environmental factors that are connected to suicide risks.

“Although youth suicide is pervasive, it can be prevented,” Little said. “Researchers, practitioners and policymakers must unite to stop suicide and circumvent the devastating pain and suffering it causes. The recommendations in this roadmap can help reduce youth suicide and guide us toward our ultimate goal of eliminating it.”

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