Research
From population-level studies to community-driven approaches to leverage artificial intelligence (AI), the Center's research is shaping how the world understands and prevents suicide.
Suicide is one of the most urgent public-health challenges of our time. The Center brings together more than 30 faculty across disciplines — epidemiology, psychiatry, biostatistics, health policy, indigenous health, AI, injury prevention — to ask better questions and produce findings practitioners and policymakers can use. Below please find the latest research updates and the Center's active grants.
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.
13 active awards across the Center's faculty.
Integrates and harmonizes 29 early-life prevention-trial datasets (42,509 participants) to test whether interventions delivered before adulthood reduce later suicide, suicidal behavior, overdose, and related outcomes.
Tests NATIVE-RISE, a systems-level strategy using predictive analytics plus risk-stratified brief interventions to improve suicide-risk identification and care across Native American-serving health settings.
Predoctoral T32 program training Indigenous and other diverse scholars in prevention science and health-equity research addressing mental- and behavioral-health drivers of premature mortality, including suicide.
Uses data linkage, latent class analysis, and psychological autopsy to identify how many opioid-related 'undetermined' deaths are actually suicides, improving death classification and prevention targeting.
Pilots a modernized psychological autopsy for youth suicide, integrating traditional interviews with digital/social-media data, medical and school records, and contextual factors, across Maryland and Pennsylvania.
Compares two evidence-based emergency-department interventions — Safety Planning Intervention with follow-up (SPI+) vs. IPT-A Ultra-Short Crisis Intervention — for suicidal youth ages 12–19 across three urban areas.
Tests the RIVER peer grief-support model for people bereaved by drug overdose, recruiting through medical examiner offices to reduce prolonged grief, substance use, and related risk. Part of the NIH HEAL Initiative.
Methods and analysis core for the CIRCLE Center (P50), providing analytic support and advancing culturally grounded Indigenous substance-use prevention research.
Pilot-funding core of the CIRCLE Center (P50) supporting Indigenous and allied early-career researchers working on substance-use inequities.
Tests the Family Spirit Strengths home-visiting intervention to reduce depression, anxiety, and substance use among primary caregivers across three Tribal communities.
Investigates whether Lyme disease and other tick-borne infections contribute to depression, suicidal thoughts and behaviors, and other neuropsychiatric outcomes in people under 25, using the Johns Hopkins REACH repository, clinical records, and the TriNetX network.
Multi-school training program in biomedical informatics and data science; Center involvement via co-PI Hadi Kharrazi.
Uses linked Medicare–Medicaid data to compare integrated vs. non-integrated Dual-Eligible Special Needs Plans on care coordination and outcomes for older adults with dementia.
Expanded the Maryland Suicide Data Warehouse (5M+ residents) and applied machine learning to improve individual- and population-level suicide mortality prediction and prevention.
Culturally adapted brief intervention (CBT + motivational interviewing) delivered by Apache community mental-health specialists to reduce binge alcohol and other substance use among at-risk Apache youth.
Used community-based participatory research to develop and pilot equitable implementation guidelines for Extreme Risk Protection Orders (ERPOs) in communities with high rates of firearm violence.
Built evidence for the Elders' Resilience Curriculum, a school-based, culturally grounded suicide-prevention intervention delivered by White Mountain Apache elders to youth ages 9–14.
Developed and piloted a community-health-worker model to improve suicide-risk screening, safety planning, parent psychoeducation, and follow-up for Latinx youth in pediatric primary care.
Used digital phenotyping (smartphone active and passive data) to capture real-time, race-related stressors and improve early detection of suicide risk among Black male youth ages 12–18.