SEYMOUR: System Dynamics Modelling for Suicide Prevention

This work is supported by the European Union H2020-EU.1.3.2. MSCA-IF-GF - Global Fellowships (Grant agreement ID: 101026065) awarded to Dr Maria Michail.

Summary

Globally, suicide is a second leading cause of death among young people aged 15-29. Despite the deployment of comprehensive and multilevel suicide prevention strategies, we still do not know which suicide prevention interventions, for which groups of young people, for how long, and with what intensity could generate the most significant reductions in youth suicide rates. Therefore, we cannot efficiently and effectively inform decision-making in youth suicide prevention policy, planning and implementation. Current methodological approaches (meta-analyses, regression models) have limited adequacy and accuracy because they do not: respond to real-time suicide data; account for the interrelationship, interdependence, and nonlinearity of suicide risk factors as they operate across multiple levels (e.g. individual, social); consider the influence of factors such as healthcare constraints (access, capacity).

SEYMOUR offers a novel paradigm for guiding the efficient and effective deployment of national and global youth suicide prevention strategies using system dynamics modelling (SDM). SEYMOUR will develop and evaluate a novel SDM that will demonstrate which suicide prevention interventions at a population level could generate the most significant reductions in suicide rates among young people aged 12-25 in Australia and the UK. This will include an implementation blueprint to facilitate the transferability, internationalisation, and adoption of the SDM as a decision-making tool in youth suicide prevention policy and practice in Europe and globally.

Aims of the study

SEYMOUR will develop and evaluate a SDM to inform youth suicide prevention policy, planning and implementation in Australia and the UK. Specifically, SEYMOUR aims to:

1. Develop and validate a model to inform the most appropriate combination of population-level suicide prevention interventions that would generate the most significant reductions in rates of suicide and attempted suicide among young people aged 12-25 over a 10-year period in North-West Melbourne (2023-2033).
2. Develop an implementation strategy to facilitate the adoption of the model as a decision-making tool in youth suicide prevention policy and practice in North-West Melbourne.
3. Adapt and validate the model in the UK context and optimise how it can inform policy, system-level reform, and service redesign in relation to youth suicide.

Collaborators

SEYMOUR brings together expertise across the disciplines of psychology, medicine, sociology, implementation science, system science and policy, and most importantly young people’s experiential knowledge of self-harm and suicidal behaviour.

Lead Researcher

• Dr Maria Michail

University of Birmingham

• Professor Justin Waring

Orygen, Centre for Youth Mental Health, University of Melbourne

• Professor Jo Robinson

Brain and Mind Centre, University of Sydney

• A/Professor Jo-An Occhipinti
• Dr Adam Skinner

Publications

• Michail, M, Robinson, J, Witt, K, Occhipinti, J-A, Skinner, A, Lamblin, M, Veresova, M, Kartal, D & Waring, J 2023, 'Which programmes and policies across health and community settings will generate the most significant impacts for youth suicide prevention in Australia and the UK? Protocol for a systems modelling and simulation study', BMJ open, vol. 13, no. 8, e071111. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2022-071111
• Michail, M & Witt, K 2023, 'Unleashing the Potential of Systems Modeling and Simulation in Supporting Policy-Making and Resource Allocation for Suicide Prevention', Crisis, vol. 44, no. 4, pp. 261-266. https://doi.org/10.1027/0227-5910/a000905
• Michail, M, Morgan, J & Lavis, A 2023, 'Youth partnership in suicide prevention research: moving beyond the safety discourse', BMJ open, vol. 13, no. 10, e076885. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2023-076885