Carlos Rodriquez, BA
I am deeply interested in why people use certain methods of suicide and what factors lead to the development of a bias towards violent (firearms, hanging, cutting) and nonviolent (overdoses, gas poisoning) means. I think understanding this is important because 80% of the suicide deaths worldwide are a product of violent method usage. Better understanding what leads to the development of this bias and what treatments work best for this subtype of suicidal patients will be the most effective way to reduce global deaths by suicide. Focusing on the group of methods instead of individual methods is important to me because I believe in method substitution and means restriction is not very effective if someone just substitutes a firearm with a different violent method like hanging. Discovering a set of biomarkers or creating a behavioral task (like an implicit association test) that determines method bias without having to rely on explicit disclosure (where violent methods are stigmatized) would be very helpful for determining violent suicide risk at emergency departments or primary care environments. Furthermore, identifying non-suicidal individuals with a violent method bias in the military context and providing them with preventative resilience training/treatments could be helpful in preventing an initial violent attempt. Ultimately, the goal is to create violent bias screening mechanisms that are not disclosure-reliant, and tailored treatments that target the core factors driving the violent bias.