Innovative Dissemination Strategies: Amplifying Suicide Prevention Research through Academic-Community Partnerships

Background and Purpose: Suicide is a leading cause of death globally, and despite growing literature and expanded awareness initiatives, death rates continue to increase. Traditional approaches to suicide prevention often focus on clinical interventions targeting individuals at heightened risk. While these efforts are crucial, they alone are insufficient to address the multifaceted nature of suicide. Given the need for broader community engagement and awareness, there has been a growing emphasis on the importance of community-based approaches in suicide prevention. Partnerships between academic institutions, healthcare providers, and community organizations offer a promising avenue to expand public awareness and education, promote community resources, and ultimately prevent suicide death.

Methods: As part of an NIMH-funded pilot effectiveness clinical trial, an academic-community collaborative team collected stakeholder (e.g., provider, client, leadership) input to modify and preliminarily test a cognitive behavioral suicide prevention treatment for adults with psychosis for delivery in a community mental health setting. Following the first aim of the study, the team was awarded a Promoting Academic and Community Engagement (PACE) Dissemination grant from Michigan Institute for Clinical and Health Research (MICHR) at the University of Michigan (U-M) to creatively disseminate findings from the research to the community at large. Community-centered dissemination efforts included developing informative materials and hosting engaging events with facilitated activities in multiple locations to reach a diverse audience. Events (n=6) aimed to raise awareness, foster dialogue, and promote community.

Results: Over 450 community members of diverse ages, backgrounds, and experiences attended at least one of the six events hosted. Attendees spoke to members of our academic-community partnership team, to one another, and spent time reading about our suicide prevention research. The majority of time was observed being spent contributing to art projects and reading suicide prevention resource information on giveaway items (e.g., pamphlets, stickers, pens, and water bottles). Nearly every attendee expressed sincere gratitude for the partnership, resources, and art projects.

Conclusions and Implications: The collaborative design and implementation of our events was an innovative approach to disseminating research findings within a community context, especially given academic research findings are most often disseminated in scholarly journals and conferences. Continued collaboration, intentional dissemination, and collaborative resource sharing are essential parts of community-based participatory research (CBPR). This partnership highlights the diverse set of skills, perspectives, and resources that come together to engage community members in the dissemination of research. These findings highlight the importance of partnership between academic and community research partners and provide a foundation for the need to investigate benefits of similar collaborations in other fields of health education.