[Federal Register Volume 81, Number 48 (Friday, March 11, 2016)]
[Notices]
[Pages 12915-12916]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2016-05564]


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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

National Institutes of Health


NIH Pathways to Prevention Workshop: Advancing Research To 
Prevent Youth Suicide

SUMMARY: The National Institutes of Health (NIH) will host a workshop 
on Advancing Research To Prevent Youth Suicide on March 29-30, 2016. 
The workshop is free and open to the public.

DATES: March 29, 2016, from 8:30 a.m.-4:50 p.m. and March 30, 2016, 
from 8:30 a.m.-1:00 p.m.

ADDRESSES: The workshop will be held at the NIH, Masur Auditorium, 
Building 10 (Clinical Center), 9000 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, Maryland 
20892. Registration and workshop information are available on the NIH 
Office of Disease Prevention (ODP) Web site at <https://prevention.nih.gov/p2psp>.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For further information concerning 
this workshop, contact the ODP at <[email protected]>, 6100 Executive 
Blvd., Room 2B03, MSC 7523, Bethesda, MD 20892-7523; Telephone: 301-
496-1508; FAX: 301-480-7660.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Suicide was the second leading cause of 
death for youth (10- to 24-year-olds) in 2014, resulting in 5,504 
deaths in the United States. This mortality has not decreased compared 
to other external causes of death, and youth suicide attempts have 
remained at consistent rates for decades. According to the 2011 Youth 
Risk Behavior Surveillance System, 2.4% of high school students 
received medical treatment for attempted suicide, and 7.8% attempted 
suicide one or more times within the year. Some groups (e.g., American 
Indian youth; young adults with substance use problems; children of 
depressed parents; youth and young adults who identify as a sexual and 
gender minority) are at increased risk for suicidal behaviors.
    One of the challenges in suicide prevention research is that the 
primary outcome of interest is multidetermined and, depending on the 
target population, suicide can be a low base rate occurrence. Many 
studies examining risk in important subgroups (e.g., racial, ethnic, 
sexual and gender minorities) often lack sufficient power to accurately 
determine the effectiveness of the intervention. Because suicidal 
behavior is often multidetermined, it may be that interventions 
addressing suicide risk factors have benefits for suicide reduction, 
but these benefits are not obvious in research findings, nor can the 
larger community know of these benefits. Pooling studies and being able 
to link data from individual studies to multiple data surveillance 
systems would be important to better understand the effectiveness of 
prevention strategies on outcomes such as suicide, suicide attempts, 
and suicide ideation. Preventing attempts and self-harm ideation would 
likely result in a reduction in deaths, as well as reductions in health 
care and social burden associated with suicidal behavior.
    Closing the research gaps related to youth suicide could lead to 
improved prevention strategies. The NIH is engaging in a rigorous 
assessment of the available scientific evidence to better understand 
the importance of identifying efforts that could be effective in 
preventing suicidal thoughts and behaviors as early as possible. The 
National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute on Drug 
Abuse, the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, 
and the NIH Office of Disease Prevention (ODP) are sponsoring the 
Pathways to Prevention Workshop: Advancing Research To Prevent Youth 
Suicide on March 29-30, 2016, in Bethesda, Maryland. The workshop will 
evaluate the current state of knowledge on youth suicide and identify 
opportunities for future

[[Page 12916]]

research. Specifically, the workshop will seek to clarify the following 
questions:
     Key Question 1: How can national, state, and community 
data systems be linked to existing data from suicide prevention efforts 
in order to add possible value for stakeholders? What methods are 
available to link the data systems?
     Key Question 2: Which statistical methods are reliable and 
valid for understanding possible mediators and moderators in suicide 
prevention programs to improve targeting interventions to populations?
     Key Question 3: Which statistical methods are reliable and 
valid for analyzing linked national, state, and community data systems 
and suicide prevention data to avoid misleading conclusions?
     Key Question 4: Given the current state of research, what 
types of methodological/analytic advances would promote further 
evaluation of youth suicide prevention efforts (e.g., new approaches to 
data linkage; increased use of common data elements; approaches to 
intervention harmonization) and facilitate intervention selection and 
implementation decisions by local community and state-level 
policymakers?
     Key Question 5: What is the way forward that will help the 
suicide prevention research community realize the potential benefits of 
early prevention? What are the immediate and longer-term research 
investments needed to accomplish this?
    Initial planning for each Pathways to Prevention workshop, 
regardless of the topic, is coordinated by a Content-Area Expert Group 
that nominates panelists and speakers and develops and finalizes 
questions that frame the workshop. After the questions are finalized, 
an evidence report is prepared by an Evidence-based Practice Center, 
through a contract with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. 
During the 1\1/2\-day workshop, invited experts discuss the body of 
evidence, and attendees provide comments during open discussion 
periods. After weighing evidence from the evidence report, expert 
presentations, and public comments, an unbiased, independent panel 
prepares a draft report that identifies research gaps and future 
research priorities. The draft report is posted on the ODP Web site for 
public comment. After reviewing the public comments, the panel prepares 
a final report, which is also posted on the ODP Web site. The ODP then 
convenes a Federal Partners Meeting to review the panel report and 
identify possible opportunities for collaboration.
    Please Note: As part of measures to ensure the safety of NIH 
employees and property, all visitors must be prepared to show a photo 
ID upon request. Visitors may be required to pass through a metal 
detector and have bags, backpacks, or purses inspected or x-rayed as 
they enter the NIH campus. For more information about the security 
measures at the NIH, please visit <http://www.nih.gov/about/visitorsecurity.htm>.

    Dated: March 7, 2016.
Lawrence A. Tabak,
Deputy Director, National Institutes of Health.
[FR Doc. 2016-05564 Filed 3-10-16; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 4140-01-P