Adolescent Suicide Research: Screening, Risk Assessment, and Intervention

Cheryl King, PhD
University of Michigan

ABSTRACT:
Adolescent suicide continues to be an urgent, public health concern. This presentation will discuss selected studies from a research program focused on developing evidence-based strategies for suicide risk screening, suicide risk assessment, and preventive intervention. Findings related to the multi-variable prediction of adolescent suicide attempts, the Computerized Adaptive Screen for Suicidal Youth (CASSY), and the Youth-Nominated Support Team intervention (YST) will be given special emphasis. 

Addressing Health Equity and Social Justice within Prevention Registries: Blueprints for Healthy Youth Development

Pamela Rose Buckley, Phd
University of Colorado Boulder

Karl Hill, Phd
University of Colorado Boulder

ABSTRACTS:
Registries of effective preventive interventions such as Blueprints for Healthy Youth Development play an important role in informing communities and policy makers about interventions that are likely to improve the lives of youths and their families. However, important challenges within prevention registries arise in addressing concerns about health equity and social justice. For example, a critical question is for whom do the certified interventions work? While establishing the internal validity of interventions appears to be the dominant focus across current clearinghouses (including Blueprints), issues of external validity are becoming more salient as program developers wrestle with barriers to implementation. Clearinghouses are positioned to play a useful role in identifying gaps in implementation to address external validity concerns, particularly those related to health equity and social justice.

 This webinar first presents an overview of the Blueprints registry, including standards for certification. We then discuss the sorts of concerns regarding adaptation/cultural relevance that registry staff and users encounter with increasing frequency. The webinar then presents the background and goals of a recently funded project that begins to address these concerns within Blueprints. While lack of representation of youth of color in health-related research studies has been well-documented, a critical evaluation of this omission has not been undertaken to substantiate this claim.  This new project will examine the representation of ethnic minority groups in preventive intervention research. This project will review and evaluate the nature, size, and/or scope of extant research involving representation of ethnic minority groups in preventive intervention research, thus serving as a vehicle for decision-making regarding the generalizability of EBIs listed on clearinghouse websites (such as Blueprints).