Rail Suicide Prevention Project
Funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Rail Suicide Prevention Project is designed to:
- Establish the prevalence of suicides on railroad rights of way
- Develop countermeasures to prevent these suicides by understanding interacting characteristics of person and site regarding why people choose to die by suicide in this manner.
Steps to achieve these goals:
- Establish prevalence data on past suicides on railroad rights of way to isolate patterns in frequency, time of day, location, and physical features of the site.
- Conduct “psychological autopsies” on individuals who died by suicide on railroad rights of way to learn more about the person and the events leading up to his or her death and an understanding of why this death occurred on the railroad's right-of-way.
- Identify geographic locations, or “hot spots” where fatalities occur with more frequency than others.
- Propose and pilot test countermeasures based on data and previously tested preventive interventions.
Using the information collected, AAS will develop an aggregate profile of those who died by suicide on railroad rights of way. It should be possible then to draw conclusions about the characteristics of these decedents, their relationship to the site and manner of death, and warning signs that will help to identify possible opportunities for prevention and intervention. The project is slated to last 3 years.
Listen to a radio show on Rail Suicide Prevention
From "Caltrain posts new suicide-prevention signs"
"Calls to the crisis hotline number on the signs will be tracked in an attempt to measure whether the signs actually help to prevent suicides... The initiative is part of a larger study by the American Association of Suicidology to measure the effectiveness of suicide-prevention signs."
Continuity of Care Paper: Press Release [PDF]
Under contract with the Suicide Prevention Research Center (SPRC), we have prepared a paper for the Department of Health and Human Services’ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration’s Center for Mental Health Services. The paper concerns continuity of care of suicide attempters after discharge from emergency department and inpatient hospitalization. It summarizes the evidence base, makes recommendations for practice, identifies the most critical gaps in knowledge, and suggests directions for new research to fill those gaps. Read now! [PDF]
