CSPAR hosts free suicide research spotlight talks on the third Thursday each month from 9-10am pacific. These presentations will delve into emerging literature on suicide prevention and treatment. Anyone is invited to attend.

If you would like to receive emails about upcoming talks, we recommend signing up for our mailing list.

Upcoming Spotlights

• October 16, 2025: THRIVE Pilot Study: A Brief, Recovery-Focused Intervention for Crisis Stabilization Centers with Dr. Jennifer Lockman
• November 20, 2025: Canceled for the ABCT Annual Convention – Registration Details
• December 18, 2025: CSPAR Annual Round Up with Dr. Kate Comtois
• January 15, 2026: Decolonizing Suicide Prevention Implementation: Implementation Strategies for Crisis Planning among Diverse Global Populations with Dr. Ashley Hagaman

Questions? Contact Us

Reach out to us at uwcspar@uw.edu or cspartrainings@uw.edu

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Archive

Find recordings of past research spotlights below.

More than 5.3 million individuals at risk for suicide seek treatment through emergency departments (EDs), despite the fact that EDs are not well suited for their care. Crisis Stabilization Centers (CSCs) are a person-centered alternative to EDs. CSCs are community-based, recovery-focused centers that operate 24/7 and accept suicidal persons into their receiving centers via crisis walk-ins, police drop-offs, and ED transfers. More than 600 CSCs are operational nationwide and are rapidly expanding across the United States due to the 988 Lifeline expansion. However, research on CSC care outcomes are severely limited, have mixed results, and are difficult to interpret due to methodological constraints. Importantly, CSCs currently have no brief, recovery-focused psychological interventions that can be deployed in this setting with demonstrated effectiveness for reducing suicide risk.

Toward Recovery, Interpersonal growth, Values, and Engagement (THRIVE) is a suicide recovery and care transitions program. THRIVE is theoretically rooted in the Interpersonal Theory of Suicide. In this presentation, Dr. Lockman will describe the theoretical framework for THRIVE, share preliminary data, and discuss the importance of a paradigm shift toward recovery-focused interventions to help suicidal persons not only stay safe and “not die” but THRIVE.

Feedback Survey: https://redcap.link/cspar-spotlight-feedback

Social media and search engine companies, such as Google, use the wealth of data at their disposal to create algorithms to predict suicide risk, and provide interventions based on company policies and outputs from these algorithms. Neither the details of these algorithms nor their accuracy in risk prediction are shared with the public, thus research is needed to verify whether algorithms applied to search engine data can accurately predict suicide risk. To address this gap, the Searchlight Study recruited 485 adults with lived experience of suicidal thoughts and behavior to participate in a gold standard interview of their past year suicidal thoughts and behavior, complete prospective surveys of suicidal thoughts and behavior every two weeks for one year and donate their Google Search and YouTube data for this entire period.

In this presentation, members of the Searchlight Study team will share important lessons learned from conducting research entirely online, recruiting participants, and acquiring Google Search data from said participants. They will present the main findings of the study, including development of ‘features’ (i.e., categorization of searches) from participants’ Search data and detection of heightened suicide risk utilizing the developed features. In addition, we will present the associations between warning signs for suicide attempts and short-term changes in suicidal ideation from our prospective surveys.

Feedback Survey: https://redcap.link/cspar-spotlight-feedback

Non suicidal self-injury (NSSI), intentional self-inflicted injury to one’s body with no suicidal intent, is one of the strongest predictors of future suicidal ideation and attempts. People with NSSI are found to have greater emotion dysregulation, greater rumination, and poorer executive functioning, all of which can lead to difficulties with consistent skills engagement. Mindfulness – a core skill in evidence-based treatments for NSSI – has been found to target many of these deficits and may be particularly relevant due to a proliferation of digital mindfulness interventions (DMI) in recent years. Although DMI have potential, cognitive-affective deficits underlying NSSI may exacerbate difficulties with effective and consistent use of DMI to receive its benefits.

In this presentation, Dr. Cheung will share findings from the pilot study, RUME, that aimed to develop a program of ecological momentary assessment (EMA)-based habit-formation strategies to boost user engagement and treatment effects of a DMI app. The presentation will highlight quantitative and qualitative feedback from participants that were used to inform design considerations, as well as explorations on the use of EMA as both an intervention and outcome measure in self-harm research.

Feedback Survey: https://redcap.link/cspar-spotlight-feedback

Suicide is a leading cause of death among U.S. military Service members and Veterans. Unfortunately, many military personnel at risk for suicide do not receive mental health treatment due to both attitudinal (e.g., stigma) and structural barriers. One way to improve resource availability for at risk individuals outside of traditional healthcare settings is to harness social media. Self-disclosures related to mental health and suicide are relatively common on social media, which may provide an opportunity to identify people who would likely benefit from help.

In this presentation Dr. Zuromski discussed how her research team developed an algorithm to identify posts with suicide-related content on a military-specific social media platform and the implications of this research.

Feedback Survey: https://redcap.link/cspar-spotlight-feedback

Caring Contacts (CC) is one of the few low-cost interventions demonstrating protective effects against suicide and has been demonstrated to potentially positively affect other areas of an individual’s mental health besides reducing suicide attempts and ideation. However, CC is inconsistently implemented and can be labor intensive, limiting its adoption and impact. For an intervention to be effective, it must be easy to use (usable), realistic to implement in daily life (feasible), and perceived as supportive and relevant by its users (acceptable). As such, the pilot team conducted a needs assessment using qualitative methods including focus groups, interviews with participants as well as our pilot experience to inform the design considerations for an informatics tool to facilitate the CC intervention and a toolkit to help users implement this scalable intervention.

In this presentation, the study team will share findings from pilot work and how these findings informed the development and optimization of our CC web-app and toolkit. They highlighted methodological innovations that were piloted and are now being used in our clinical trial including the co-design method, strategies for online recruitment, and the use of EMA blocks to examine the effectiveness of ISACC and explored the active mechanisms involved in the intervention.

Feedback Survey: https://redcap.link/cspar-spotlight-feedback

To contribute to implementation and dissemination efforts, qualitative health research must be able to move at a rapid pace that keeps up with the constantly changing demands of real-world practice settings. In this presentation we introduce a novel approach for rapid qualitative data analysis: Rapid Group Analysis Process (Rap-GAP). Rap-GAP builds and improves upon existing rapid qualitative methods and leverages online technology to facilitate an efficient iterative group process.  This method offers a clear process and practical tools to help teams analyze qualitative data on a timeline that will allow them to contribute meaningfully to implementation and dissemination efforts in health care settings.

During the presentation Drs. Hsu and Angerhofer: 1) Described the 5-step Rap-GAP process and demonstrate how to use the method and adapt it for different analytical goals, 2) Introduced tools and templates designed to make Rap-GAP easy to carry out, 3) provided a case example and 4) answered specific questions participants may have regarding the Rap-GAP process. 

Data Safety Monitoring Boards (DSMBs) have become increasingly common in psychosocial research trials – particularly those with participants who are considered vulnerable or where the research is taking place at multiple sites, both of which characterize trials of suicide interventions.

DSMBs are helpful to the investigative team, yet many researchers conducting psychosocial intervention or suicide research have limited exposure to DSMBs compared to their medical research colleagues and thus DSMBs can be confusing not only for the investigative team but also for the experts who are asked to serve as members or chairs.

In collaboration with Dr. Greg Simon, Dr. Comtois developed an innovative suicide research specific DSMB format and in this presentation, Dr. Comtois integrated her experience and expertise with a review of the DSMB literature to address key issues in psychosocial intervention and suicide research designed for current and future investigators, as well as, DSMB members and chairs.

Feedback Survey: https://redcap.link/cspar-spotlight-feedback

In this presentation, Dr. McCauley focused on factors contributing to the onset, persistence/desistence of SI drawing on data from a subsample of 137 young adults who participated in a longitudinal study of the emotional development of 520 ethnically/socioeconomically diverse individuals, seen in nine waves of data collection from age 12 to age 31.

In this presentation, Drs. Larry Pruitt, Derek Smolenski, and Daniel Evatt discussed the benefits and challenges of randomized controlled trials and the proposed alternatives in the context of suicide research. They highlighted the risks of falling short of acceptable research standards and provided strategies to advance suicide prevention research.