From prediction to risk assessment: What’s new in suicide prevention.

In this blog, Claudia García-Martínez, psychologist and PhD student in Psychology at the University of Zaragoza (Spain) discusses the role of social media in developing new approaches for suicide prevention.

Suicide has been defined as a global health priority by World Health Organization (2014). And it is not for less: it causes over 700,000 deaths every year in the world and is the fourth leading cause of death in young people aged 15-29 years. The reduction of suicide mortality is a global target and is included as an indicator in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)1.

In some way, stigma and taboo have possibly hampered a greater development of prevention strategies for decades. Now we are talking more and more about suicide and therefore, we are seeing new prevention approaches that hopefully will lead to a better prevention and intervention programs.

Until a few decades ago, research efforts have been focused on curbing suicide deaths by trying to predict their occurrence. But suicide deaths are statistically a rare event. So it has been really complex to develop sensitive tools with sufficient predictive value. Continue reading

  1. World Health Organisation. Fact sheets: Suicide. June 17, 2021. Retrieved from: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/suicide []

The first ever EUSPR-ECF webinar

In this blog post, Laura Castillo-Eito, PhD candidate at the University of Sheffield (UK)  shares with us the experience of the first webinar of the EUSPR Early Career Forum.

Technology! We are surrounded by it: computers, smartphones, tablets… We use technology every day in our private life and, if you are a researcher or a practitioner, you are likely to use it every day for your work. I know I do, and I could not imagine doing research without it. I don’t know how they did it before!

As prevention researchers and practitioners, we use technology and the Internet for a range of different things and technology could be used to deliver affordable training to everyone’s office and house. Some institutions have done it for years but others are still reluctant. I can proudly say that the European Society for Prevention Research Early Careers Forum (EUSPR-ECF) -host of this blog- has recently started to offer some online training. Continue reading

‘Public Health PhD Symposium 2016’ – reflections on organising and delivering a postgraduate research conference

Rebecca Crook is a postgraduate researcher at the Public Health Institute at Liverpool John Moores University in the UK. In this blog post, she describes her recent experience of organising a one-day symposium for postgraduate researchers and shares her lessons learnt for others who might find themselves in a similar position.

The following blog post is a reflection on my recent role as Symposium Director for the 2nd Public Health PhD Symposium at Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU). I chose to focus on this topic for the blog hoping that it might encourage other postgraduate and early career researchers if they are considering organising a networking event, and give some hints and tips along the way.

Flyer used to advertise the symposium (© Public Health Institute, Liverpool John Moores University)

Screenshot of the PDF flyer used to advertise the PhD Symposium (© Public Health Institute, Liverpool John Moores University)

The invitation

The idea for the ‘Public Health PhD Symposium’ came about last year. Following a successful event in April 2015, it was decided that this would become an annual affair organised by a student from the Public Health Institute (PHI) at LJMU. Earlier this year the Director of the PHI, Jim McVeigh, approached me and asked if I would be interested in organising this summer’s symposium. Having attended and presented at the event last April, I accepted and looked forward to taking on this new role. Continue reading

Early career preventionists in North America: Who are they and what do they hope for?

The EUSPR’s Early Careers Forum is not the only network for early-careers preventionists. A similar network has been existing in North America for over two decades: the Early Career Preventionist Network (ECPN). We have invited the current chair, Marie-Hélène Véronneau, Associate Professor at the Department of Psychology, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), to introduce this network and reflect on current debates and developments among early-career preventionists in North America.

In this first North American blog post, I would like to introduce the Early Career Preventionist Network (ECPN). This network is part of the Society for Prevention Research (SPR), which is more or less the North American counterpart of the European Society for Prevention Research (EUSPR). ECPN is something like the “sister organization” of the EUSPR Early Careers Forum from across the Atlantic. I will first outline a brief history of ECPN and explain its structure, then I will give you an overview of who is currently involved in our steering committee, and finally I will say a few words on our hopes for the future of prevention science.

Continue reading