Social Work's Carolina Hausmann-Stabile among Founders of New Suicide Research Consortium
Assistant Professor of Social Work Carolina Hausmann-Stabile is a founding member and serves on the board of directors of The Youth Suicide Research Consortium (YSRC), a new interdisciplinary group of researchers from the U.S. with the goal of increasing diversity in suicide research among children, adolescents, and young adults.
Hausmann-Stabile recently contributed an article on Theories Explaining Suicidal Behaviors to the consortium’s blog.
YSRC, which includes researchers from 22 institutions (colleges, universities, and medical centers), is dedicated to the study of youth suicidal behavior among diverse populations, including racially, ethnically, and socioeconomically diverse, sexual minority, and gender-diverse youth, with an emphasis on understanding and decreasing disparities.
From the announcement of the group’s formation:
"The number of children hospitalized for thinking about and attempting suicide has more than doubled in less than a decade. More people think about and attempt suicide in their teens and early twenties than they do at any other time in development, across race and ethnicity. However, while the suicide rate among White (non-Hispanic) Americans is highest in middle age, the suicide rate among racial and ethnic minorities is highest in the early twenties. Additionally, national surveys of high school students suggest racial disparities in suicidal thoughts and attempts, and sexual minority youth are particularly vulnerable to attempting and dying by suicide. YSRC researchers believe that with the increasing diversity of the U.S. population—particularly among youth—it is critical for theories and research on youth suicide and for suicide prevention to keep pace with shifting demographics by increasing representation of these groups in research.
"The YSRC seeks to accomplish this goal by fostering multilevel and crossdisciplinary conceptualizations of and research on youth suicide and self-harm in the United States and other parts of the world, and by encouraging suicide research that considers development and diversity. The YSRC hopes to disseminate research findings among families, teachers, clinicians, youth, policy makers, media, and other consumers who are not researchers or academics but for whom suicidal behaviors are of concern; and to empower researchers from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines to advance in their careers by mentoring aspiring and junior researchers interested in the study of youth suicidal behavior. The YSRC also hopes to serve as a model for similar efforts in other countries. For more information, or if interested in joining or partnering with the YSRC, please visit www.youthsuicideresearch.org, www.blog.youthsuicideresearch.org, or contact info@youthsuicideresearch.org. You can also follow the YSRC on Twitter @youthsuicideres."
Hausmann-Stabile has more than a decade of experience working to improve Latinos health and mental health across the United States and Latin America, with a focus on reducing suicidal behaviors among adolescent girls.