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Suicide

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Report
Strategies to Help Prevent Suicide Among Veterans
Suicide rates have been higher among veterans than nonveterans for the past 12 years. And since 2005, the rate has risen faster among veterans than it has for nonveterans. There are opportunities to improve risk identification, evaluation, support, treatments, and interventions.
Jul 15, 2021
Project
Informing the Gun Policy Debate
RAND's Gun Policy in America initiative provides information on what scientific research can tell us about the effects of gun laws. Our goal is to establish a shared set of facts that will improve public discussions and support the development of fair and effective gun policies.
Jan 10, 2023

Explore Suicide

Project
Evaluation of California's Statewide Mental Health Prevention and Early Intervention Initiatives
The RAND Corporation is evaluating California's statewide prevention and early intervention programs, which aim to reduce negative outcomes for people experiencing mental illness.
Jun 13, 2023
Report
Evaluation of California's Statewide Mental Health Campaigns
This report describes surveys of a representative sample of California adults to understand the reach and impact of the California Mental Health Services Authority's mental health prevention and early intervention campaigns.
Jun 13, 2023
Blog
RAND Turns 75: A Look Through the Decades At World-Changing Research
From anticipating the Space Age in the 1940s to studying gun policy and COVID-19 responses in the 2020s, RAND is celebrating 75 years of research that has made a difference.
May 8, 2023
Journal Article
Changes in Poison Center Calls for Intentional Exposure During Public Health Emergencies: COVID-19 and Winter Storm Uri in Dallas County, Texas
This study explored changes in the volume of calls to poison control centers for intentional exposures in Dallas County, Texas. Changes in call volume varied by gender and age and increased during the local COVID-19 surge.
Mar 23, 2023
Report
Interventions for People Who Have Attempted Suicide and Their Family Members: A Systematic Review
A history of having attempted suicide is an important risk factor for suicide. In this report, the authors review the uptake, retention, and effectiveness of suicide aftercare interventions after an attempt.
Mar 8, 2023
News Release
Online Tool Allows State-by-State Analysis of Firearm Policies and Death Rates
States in the northeast and the coastal west region of the United States have among the lowest firearm death rates in the nation, while states in the south and mountain west have firearm death rates that are especially high.
Feb 23, 2023
Tool
Visualizing Firearm Mortality and Law Effects: An Interactive Web-Based Tool
This tool provides users with information about the distribution of firearm deaths across states and demographic subgroups. Users can explore how those deaths might be affected by the implementation of a set of commonly enacted state firearm laws.
Feb 23, 2023
Tool
New Tool Shows State-by-State Firearm Policies and Death Rates
An online tool allows users to see how firearm death rates vary across the United States and explore how changes in gun policy might affect those rates for each state. It shows that states in the northeast and the coastal west have the lowest firearm death rates, while states in the south and mountain west have rates that are especially high.
Feb 22, 2023
Testimony
State Firearm Laws and Suicide Prevention
More than 700 Vermont residents died of gunshot wounds from 2011 to 2020. Eighty-eight percent of these deaths were suicides. Although the full costs and benefits of gun laws are not known, how might firearm legislation affect Vermont’s suicide rate?
Feb 14, 2023
News Release
Evidence About Effects of Gun Policies Grows and Supports Laws Intended to Restrict Child Access to Guns
There is now supportive evidence that child-access-prevention laws reduce firearm homicides and self-injuries among youth, and that shall-issue concealed-carry laws and stand-your-ground laws increase levels of firearm violence.
Jan 10, 2023
Report
Latest Findings from RAND's Gun Policy in America Study
The third edition of RAND's report on gun policy synthesizes scientific evidence for the effects of various policies on firearm deaths, violent crime, suicides, the gun industry, defensive gun use, and other outcomes.
Jan 10, 2023
Journal Article
Preventing Youth Suicide: Potential "Crossover Effects" of Existing School-Based Programs
This paper is intended to provide a framework to help researchers, practitioners, and policymakers as they consider how to prevent youth suicide using existing school-based resources.
Dec 13, 2022
Journal Article
The Key Role of Schools in Youth Suicide Prevention
This commentary presents the evidence for why schools are critical to youth suicide prevention efforts.
Dec 7, 2022
Journal Article
Suicidality Among Sexual Minority Adults: Gender, Age, and Race/Ethnicity Differences
This study examined past-year suicide thoughts, plans, and attempts among adult respondents to the 2015–2019 National Surveys on Drug Use and Health (pooled N=191,954).
Oct 27, 2022
Journal Article
Mental Health Service Use Among Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Adults Who Report Having Attempted Suicide
This study estimated mental health service use among lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) adults in the United States who reported having made a suicide attempt.
Oct 27, 2022
Journal Article
Mental Health Emergency Hotlines in the United States: A Scoping Review (2012–2021)
This scoping review describes the current literature on mental health emergency hotlines in the United States, and also identifies gaps in the literature and presents recommendations.
Oct 24, 2022
Multimedia
988 Mental Health Hotline: Connecting People to Care
RAND researchers Stephanie Brooks Holliday and Ryan K. McBain describe findings from their recent work that examined how prepared states and counties are for the launch of 988, the new mental health emergency hotline.
Jul 15, 2022
Report
Personal Firearm Storage in the United States: Recent Estimates, Patterns, and Effectiveness of Interventions
This report describes what is meant by safe firearm storage, provides estimates of U.S. gun owners' storage practices from representative surveys, and presents research on the effectiveness of interventions to change such practices.
Jul 11, 2022
Journal Article
Clinical Pathway for Suicide Risk Screening in Adult Primary Care Settings: Special Recommendations
This paper describes a clinical suicide risk screening pathway for adult primary care practices. We also provide guidance to aid primary care practices in their decisions about how to implement the clinical pathway.
Jun 22, 2022
Journal Article
Advancing Research in Child Suicide: A Call to Action
This paper highlights the problem of child suicide, summarizes what is known and not known about the problem in the empirical literature, and provides recommendations with ethical considerations for future research and practice.
Jun 22, 2022

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Research conducted by

Researcher Spotlight

Samantha Matthews

Ph.D. Student, Pardee RAND Graduate School, and Assistant Policy Researcher, RAND

Samantha Matthews (she/her) is a Ph.D. student in the Community-Partnered Policy and Action stream at the Pardee RAND Graduate School and an assistant policy researcher at RAND. Her research is focused on behavioral health, suicide prevention, homelessness, and criminal justice. At RAND, she has…
Rachel M. Burns

Senior Quantitative Analyst

Rachel M. Burns is a senior quantitative analyst at the RAND Corporation. During her tenure at RAND, she has worked on projects focused on disaster response and recovery operations, neighborhood influences on health, substance abuse and drug policy, unmanned aerial vehicles, the mental health…

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