Updates
Research findings and community stories — translating evidence into action.
A study led by Dr. Matthew Castner finds that adding clinical, health care access and social data to area-level suicide prediction models improves them, with clinical data adding the most.
A study led by Susanna Lewis finds that when counselors in a campus screening program gave clear information and showed emotional support, students were more likely to ask for a referral to mental health care.
Research from Dr. James Aluri and colleagues on a campus screening program shows that participation is uneven, and that the program reaches many students with elevated depression symptoms.
Social scientist Andrea N. Cimino explains how intimate partner violence, coercive control and contact with the criminal legal system connect to suicide risk, and why prevention needs to start long before a crisis.
Dr. Lanny Berman explains what recent reviews of youth suicide risk factors still cannot tell us, and introduces a new multi-site Johns Hopkins study of what changes in the week before a suicide attempt.
Dr. James Aluri reflects on a gap that shapes college suicide prevention: there is no reliable count of how many U.S. college students die by suicide each year, and better data is the foundation for knowing who needs support.
Research co-authored by Center faculty finds that when a protective barrier is installed, deaths at that site fall and do not simply shift to nearby sites, evidence that is now informing public decisions about barriers.
On NPR, Center Director Dr. Holly Wilcox called a new ChatGPT "trusted contact" feature a small step in the right direction, and said she would rather see AI companies connect users directly with crisis counselors from 988.
On the Public Health On Call podcast, Center Medical Director Dr. Paul Nestadt and Dr. Jimmy Potash discuss the benefits and drawbacks of SSRIs, the most commonly prescribed antidepressants, and why they remain an important treatment option.
After a California jury found social media companies liable in a youth mental health case, Center Senior Advisor Dr. Lanny Berman explains why the science on social media and young people's mental health is not yet settled.
Dr. Laura Prichett has received a Global Lyme Alliance research grant to study how Lyme disease may be associated with depression, suicidal thoughts and behaviors, and other mental health outcomes in young people.
A new study of 153 Black transgender women, led by Athena D. F. Sherman of Emory University, found that feelings of worthlessness and other depressive symptoms, not trauma symptoms, set apart those who reported suicidal thoughts, pointing to what clinicians can listen for when a screening question comes back "no."
Led by Dr. Laura Prichett, the EQUIP pilot is working with a Johns Hopkins pediatric primary care clinic to strengthen every step after suicide risk screening, from assessment to follow-up.
In Washington, DC, the Center and the Born This Way Foundation brought together Johns Hopkins peer listeners and young leaders for Generation Be There, an evening about learning to be there for one another.
Two narrative reviews led by Dr. Paul Nestadt, developed with advocates Rob and Terri Bogue of SuicideMyths.org, examine risk after psychiatric hospitalization and the promise and limits of universal screening.
KFF Health News' "Eleven Minutes" series by reporter Aneri Pattani looks at suicide prevention that starts well before a crisis, from economic stability to the everyday social connections that give people reasons to live.
National data show fewer suicide deaths in 2024 than in 2023, but Maryland was one of more than a dozen states that saw an increase. Center Director Dr. Holly Wilcox points to priorities that can help the state move forward.
A new Johns Hopkins Medicine profile honors Dr. John Campo, a pediatric psychiatrist who spent decades bringing mental health care into everyday medicine and who helped support the people who created the Center; he has also shared a personal essay in The Washington Post.
Dan Reidenberg, Psy.D., who founded Safe Online Standards and wrote the U.S. recommendations for media reporting on suicide, joins the Center as Core Faculty.
A Hopkins Medicine magazine feature explores the Center's psychological autopsy research, which learns from the families and friends of people who died by suicide to understand what might have helped.
The Center welcomes Andrea Cimino, PhD, MSW, LMSW, a social scientist who studies how violence and trauma shape suicide and homicide risk and who is working on the Center's psychological autopsy research.
At the SAVIR 2026 conference in Providence, Center Medical Director Dr. Paul Nestadt led two workshops on setting up and running suicide fatality review teams using the Collaborative Framework for Prevention.
A new paper led by Dr. Laura Prichett in Academic Pediatrics finds that mental health recovery after the pandemic has been uneven, with adolescent girls and racially and ethnically minoritized youth seeing larger increases in diagnosed conditions.
Dr. James Aluri, Ashley Witmer and Susanna Lewis presented research on a campus mental health screening program at the Mental Health on College Campuses Conference at the University of Michigan.
Dr. Valentín Quiroz Sierra and urban Native youth in California are building IndigiText, a culture-based text message program that aims to strengthen cultural connectedness, with young people writing the messages themselves.
This spring, the Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy and the Center for Suicide Prevention co-hosted a free, seven-week virtual seminar that brought suicide prevention research, policy and practice to anyone who wanted to learn.
A study protocol led by PhD student Marcus Henderson will examine what shapes parents’ confidence to support a teenager after an emergency department visit for suicidal behavior, with a focus on Black families.
The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention honored Center Director Dr. Holly Wilcox with its 2026 Annual Research Award for work advancing public health approaches to suicide prevention.
A study of more than 63,000 college students who used an online screening program finds that students with more severe symptoms were more likely to ask for a referral to care, while some groups were less likely to ask.
At the Responsible AI for Health Symposium in Washington, D.C., Center Deputy Director Dr. Emily Haroz joined leaders from medicine, technology, business and policy to discuss how AI tools in health care can be safe, fair and useful.
Maryland's Suicide Fatality Review Committee, chaired by Center Medical Director Dr. Paul Nestadt, has released its 2025 report to the Governor and General Assembly, with recommendations in six areas from education to data.
A new paper led by Dr. Emily Haroz offers a phase-by-phase framework for building AI and machine-learning tools with communities, not just for them, drawing on suicide prevention work with American Indian, Latino and Native Hawaiian communities.
At a Bloomberg School event honoring alumna Sophie Rottenberg, Center Director Dr. Holly Wilcox joined writer Laura Reiley and psychiatrist Dr. Thomas Insel to discuss how AI can support well-being while protecting people who are most vulnerable.
Center faculty developed a “cascade of care” model that maps suicide prevention as a connected set of stages, from recognizing risk to recovery, so systems can see where people fall through the gaps.