To comb through the many factors contributing to suicide risk in a more systematic way, Nock (profiled in “A Tragedy and a Mystery,” January-February 2011, page 32) and colleagues have been working on a new approach that uses a computer algorithm.
PSYCHOLOGY PROFESSOR Matthew Nock has spent his career studying self-harm, but he remains humbled by how little is yet understood about why people kill themselves.
Suicide is now the nation's tenth-leading cause of death, and the second-leading cause of death for Americans aged 15-34 years old. Top suicide researchers are developing new technological tools to help predict who is most at risk and save lives. NewsHour Weekend Special Correspondent Alison Stewart reports.
Scientists are making headway in the search for solutions to one of the most vexing problems in mental health: How to predict who is at risk for suicide.
"As a field, we're not very good at accurately predicting who is at risk for suicidal behavior," says Matthew Nock, a psychology professor at Harvard. He says studies show that mental health professionals "perform no better than chance" when it comes to predicting which patients will attempt suicide. Listen here.
“We are really struggling with identifying which people who think about suicide go on to act on their suicidal thoughts and which ones don’t.” Listen here.
Is there a need for tracking suicides among military family members? Should suicides of parents and siblings also be tracked? Is this effort worth the price tag? What mental health options currently exist for military families? Listen here.