Funded Injury Control Research Centers (ICRCs)

Overview

The Injury Control Research Center for Suicide Prevention (ICRC-S) is dedicated to promoting public health approaches to reduce the mortality and morbidity associated with suicide and attempted suicide. The ICRC-S is a collaboration of the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) and the Education Development Center (EDC). It is a center-without-walls that serves a catalytic role nationally, in HHS Region 1, and in New York State. The ICRC-S focuses on a diverse array of common distal risks that profoundly influence the life trajectories of people, of families, and of communities, and serves as an engine for research, outreach and dissemination, and education. The ICRC-S seeks to transform the field of suicide prevention by drawing it fully into the domain of public health and injury prevention while actively linking it to complementary mental health approaches, thus facilitating new prevention initiatives at state, regional, and national levels. In short, the uniting theme of the ICRC-S involves "bridging the gaps." The ICRC-S is focusing on: 1) enhancing access to data essential for planning prevention initiatives, 2) systematically defining and confronting the challenges posed by preventing suicide and attempted suicide among men and women in the middle years of life, and 3) focusing upon intimate partner violence as one of several areas that coalesce individual and family problems, substance misuse, and financial and economic distress as contextual contributions to suicidal behaviors and deaths. The ICRC-S brings together an array of efforts funded by NIH and the VA to further address the challenges posed by suicide, while also testing new approaches to preventing suicide and attempted suicide among diverse populations. The ICRC-S is constantly evaluating its progress and developing new initiatives with state, regional, and national partners to create critically important linkages that serve to effectively and efficiently drive the suicide prevention field forward.