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Identifying and Understanding Suicides That Take Place During Encounters With Police

2022 Linked Standard Research Grant

Amount Awarded: $448,063

Focus Area: Psychosocial Studies

Deborah Azrael, M.D.

Deborah Azrael, Ph.D.

Harvard University

Matthew Miller, M.D., MPH, Sc.D.

Matthew Miller, Sc.D., MPH

Northeastern University

Inside the Research

Hundreds of people in the U.S. die by suicide during interactions with police, and little is known about how often and under what circumstances these suicide deaths occur. Using data from National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS), 2015-2019, suicides that take place during encounters with police, i.e., “suicide police encounters” (SPEs), will be identified and studied by applying Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques to over 100,000 NVDRS incident narratives to improve understanding of these events. The goal is to inform efforts to reduce suicides during police encounters and improve public safety responses to those at risk of suicide.