Advancing Evidence-Based Suicide Prevention

Suicide is preventable. Researchers at the Center focus on advancing public health approaches to suicide prevention, including policies, early intervention, and chain-of-care approaches. Core faculty member, Holly Wilcox, PhD '03, MS, is actively engaged in advancing evidence-based suicide prevention. She leads population-based prospective studies of suicidal behaviors, researches the effectiveness of community-based universal prevention programs embedded into service sectors, utilizes data linkage and harmonization to inform suicide prevention, and conducts intergenerational genetic studies of suicide risk in offspring at increased risk of bipolar disorder.  Wilcox leads the Suicide Prevention Working Group at the Bloomberg School and is recognized as an international expert in youth suicide. In 2022, she was appointed by Governor Hogan to the Maryland Commission on Suicide Prevention, a group created to strengthen and coordinate the state’s suicide prevention, intervention, and postvention services.