A new suicide research group is bringing together mental health experts from across Wayne State University and the greater Detroit area to explore risk factors and interventions for a public health problem that claims tens of thousands of lives each year in the United States alone.

Launched this fall, the research group was spearheaded by Michael Kral, associate professor in the Wayne State School of Social Work, and Steven Stack, professor of criminal justice in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Kral is a medical anthropologist and clinical psychologist who for 20 years has conducted participatory research on suicide with Inuit in Arctic Canada; Stack is among the most widely published scholars on the subject of suicide. The two are joined at biweekly meetings by nearly 35 faculty and students representing social work, criminology, medicine, nursing, public health, psychiatry, psychology, and anthropology, as well as experts from city-based agencies, including the American Indian Health and Family Services and the John D. Dingell VA Medical Center.

According to Kral, the biological and psychosocial contributors to suicide necessitate an interdisciplinary approach to understanding and preventing the problem. Also needed is research at the micro and macro levels, he said, with a focus on suicide in the context of individuals and families as well as societal factors. By way of example, Kral noted that suicide among the Inuit, which reached a record high in 2013, is a direct result of governmental policies that resettled families and separated older and younger generations. This abraded their collectivist and patriarchal culture and lead to increased rates of substance abuse and depression among the Inuit.

Stack agrees, noting that suicide research as a whole has suffered from "departmentalization."

"You can divide the study of suicide into two camps of researchers," Stack said. "There are those who look at the psychology of individuals who commit suicide and those who study it from a social perspective. Interdisciplinary work is not that common, so a lot of benefit can be generated from the approach we're taking at Wayne State."

Kral, who while teaching at the University of Windsor in the 1990s organized a similar research group that Stack regularly travelled from Wayne State to attend, said the participants plan to engage in a variety of research activities. These include discussing scholarly articles, hosting speakers, and identifying interdisciplinary research projects. A particular focus will be on designing student-faculty research collaborations, Kral said, noting that interest in the group from the student body has been particularly strong.

Meanwhile, the group is seeking support for research in key areas. Members recently submitted a proposal on veteran suicide and prevention to the President's Research Enhancement Program at Wayne State, and Stack and other suicide and injury experts will meet in January with the University of Michigan Injury Center to discuss strategies for recruiting and processing proposals for pilot projects specifically on suicide and suicide prevention. Stack is a member of the center's Internal Advisory Committee.

While numerous aspects of suicide need clarification, Stack said the research community is particularly curious about factors that differentiate those who contemplate suicide, those who attempt it, and those who complete it.

"There are about 8.3 million people who seriously considered suicide in 2009, but only about one million who actually attempted it. And of those one million people, only about 38,000 completed it," Stack said. "That's a puzzle. And while there are researchers who specialize in ideation, those who study attempts and those who study completion, there is very little research looking at all three and how they are different. These might be three distinct populations of people requiring three distinct types of interventions."

For more information about the suicide research group, contact Michael Kral at michael.kral@wayne.edu.