EAST LANSING — A Michigan State University professor helps lead the newly founded Suicide Prevention Research Center, which focuses on reaching out to those in the prison system who are at risk of suicide.
The National Center for the Integration of Health and Justice for Suicide Prevention will be funded for five years with a $15 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health. Research on the center is not yet underway, but is expected to begin within the next year.
Jennifer Johnson, CS Mott Endowed Professor of Public Health at Michigan State University School of Human Medicine, serves as one of the center’s three principal investigators. Henry Ford Health in Detroit and his two principal investigators at Brown University in Rhode Island are also leading the program, bringing together more than 100 stakeholders, 30 researchers, several in Michigan. More than 10 institutions participate, including
The Center’s work includes four studies. Let’s look at each:
- Efforts aimed at identifying people at risk when entering the prison system and linking them to health system support,
- Efforts to identify at-risk individuals released from prison and connect them with health care providers.
- Efforts to identify at-risk individuals in three Michigan prisons and alert prison administrators to allow further evaluation or support
- Worked with Cambridge Police Department and Cambridge Health Alliance in Massachusetts to add System Navigator to local emergency departments to “conduct rapid mental health and suicide risk assessments” of individuals to help police and medical staff respond to needs efforts to
According to Johnson, the study could go a long way toward preventing suicide in places where suicide risk is particularly high.
“One in three men and one in eight women who die by suicide have spent at least one night in prison. Because that’s when it started to unravel,” she said. “That’s when they’re at stake. If you’re looking for people who are at risk of suicide and are poorly connected to care, that’s their place.”
identify people at risk of suicide
The struggle to create effective suicide prevention programs often begins with not knowing where to find people at risk, says Johnson, a licensed clinical psychologist. Stated.
“It’s a needle in a haystack,” she said. “How do you find people at risk?”
Jail is one of the best places to look, Johnson said, because three-quarters of those who enter the criminal justice system suffer from addiction, and more than half are diagnosed with mental health problems. For those people, their stay in prison, however brief, is a moment of crisis.
The Center applies computer algorithms to large datasets derived from health and medical records, and cross-references them with publicly available prison incarceration and criminal justice records to help people at risk. , said Lauren Weinstock, a professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University.
“This is a real-time means of identifying people entering and exiting the judicial environment, but also participating in the health systems of the communities in which they live,” Weinstock said. Center.
The data will be used in different ways in each of the Center’s four studies to link identified at-risk individuals, whether in prison or recently released, to mental and health support. she said.
“We can help the health system identify the person so they can get in touch and contact the person to check in and, if necessary, conduct a suicide risk assessment or initiate a suicide prevention intervention. We can provide it,” Weinstock said.
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Effective Tools for Prison Officials
Data collected will be used to inform administrators of three prisons in Michigan participating in the study that inmates are at risk of suicide and require further evaluation or assistance. When identified as, Sheryl Kubiak said. Wayne State University Center for Behavioral Health and Justice.
Kubiak, who oversees the study, said the prisons involved have not yet been finalized. I hope to
“Most of the mechanisms that prisons have when people come in are self-reports,” Kubiak said.All prison staff ask people if they are contemplating suicide while incarcerated.
Capt. Jason Gould of the Genesee County Sheriff’s Office has been a prison administrator for nearly a decade.
“The fact is that prisons in our county, our state, and arguably our entire country are turning into mental hospitals…there’s literally no other place on the road to put them.” They don’t necessarily need to be jailed, they just need help and treatment.”
He said the algorithm-based response project Kubiak is working on is an effective way to ensure these people get help.
“They’re trying to put it all together and say, ‘There’s a better pattern for this, and we can get help to people in need more efficiently.'”
Those involved in the center’s research will also consider the cost-effectiveness of the methods, Weinstock said, hoping that in the future the medical and prison systems will be able to implement them.
Please contact Rachel Greco at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @GrecoatLSJ .
