Postdoctoral Training in Suicide Research

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

PROJECT SUMMARY: POSTDOCTORAL TRAINING IN SUICIDE RESEARCH Suicidal behavior is a major public health problem with over 47,000 deaths by suicide in the United States in 2017 and over 1,400,000 suicide attempts. Unfortunately, rates of suicide deaths and attempts have increased in recent years. There have been multiple calls for increased research on all aspects of suicidal behavior ranging from basic experimental to clinical trials to implementation efforts. Yet the cadre of researchers necessary to conduct this vitally needed research is limited. There is currently only one other T32 postdoctoral training program focused exclusively on suicide research, with only six training slots. Thus, there is a pressing need for more training in suicide research. Brown has a established cadre of suicide researchers including 10 senior level researchers, as well as 5 junior level suicide researchers. These faculty’s research focus covers a broad range of suicide research, spanning basic and predictive research, intervention, and implementation science. Other faculty at Brown offer a wide range of expertise in research areas that are highly complementary to important questions in suicide research, such as sleep, genetics, implementation science, big data, and statistics. Our faculty has extensive experience training new investigators; one of the MPIs of this application (Dr. Miller) led a very successful T32 (T32MH067553) in “Treatment Research” for 10 years. Other senior investigators have successfully mentored a number of postdoctoral fellows. Finally, Brown has a well established and successful infrastructure for research training, including five other NIH funded T32 programs (none of which focus of suicide). This postdoctoral training program will be directed jointly by Drs. Ivan Miller and Lauren Weinstock. Drs. Miller and Weinstock are established investigators with a history of conducting suicide research. With a plan to enroll three new postdoctoral fellows (PhDs and MDs) per year for a 2-3 year postdoctoral fellowship experience, the research training plan will be based on the apprenticeship model. Based on the fellow’s interests and overlap with faculty’s expertise, each fellow will be assigned to a senior suicide researcher as a Primary Mentor. Each fellow will also have a Co-Mentor, either a junior suicide researcher or a senior researcher with complementary expertise. Developed collaboratively between fellow and Mentor(s), the research training program will typically include five components: (1) supervised participation in the ongoing work of an established research team led by the primary mentor; (2) development of an independent research application to be submitted by the end of the first training year; (3) participation in a formal didactic program including seminars on suicide research, research design, and ethics; (4) data analysis and manuscript preparation from existing faculty data; and (5) an independent research project conducted over two years, supervised by the primary mentor, that will include formulation of the question, data analysis, and manuscript preparation.