UAF Expands Suicide Prevention Research with Military Partners
Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson airmen and soldiers participate in a CrossFit competition during a Suicide Prevention event at Buckner Physical Fitness Center in September 2017.
Staff Sgt. James A. Richardson Jr. | US Air Force
A $1.9 million federal grant allows UAF to expand suicide prevention research by partnering with the Alaska National Guard and US Coast Guard.
Building on Success
UAF’s Military Health and Readiness Consortium (MiHRC) researches ways to improve protection against suicide while supporting an installation’s ability to execute its missions. The consortium is part of UAF’s Center for Alaska Native Health Research (CANHR) within the Institute of Arctic Biology.
Consortium researchers have already noted an increase in suicide prevention skills and knowledge in the US Army’s 11th Airborne Division, with brigades based at Fort Wainwright in Fairbanks and Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage.
“Our inaugural research with the 11th Airborne Division draws on both CANHR’s successful collaboration approach with Alaska Native communities and purposeful leadership studies by the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research,” says Liz Mangini, a program director with MiHRC. “This unique and innovative approach focuses on a partnership between military leadership and the university to collaborate on developing tools to positively affect the quality of life and mental health of the soldiers.”
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Congress provided additional funding specifically to target suicide prevention on rural, remote, and isolated military installations.
“UAF is a military-friendly institution, and we know that many of our students are also military members or veterans,” says James Morton, principal investigator and an assistant research professor at CANHR. “Here in Alaska, our military communities experience a disproportionate number of deaths from suicide and need science-informed innovations that strengthen our service members while protecting them from suicide risk.”
MiHRC research collaborators include Louisiana State University, and the US Army Medical Research Directorate-West, part of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. The US Army Medical Research and Development Command under the US Department of Defense provided financial support for the work.
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