Suicide Prevention Tools Improved

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-army-is-building-an-algorithm-to-prevent-suicide/

The Army Is Building An Algorithm To Prevent Suicide

Jerry Evans Jr. fills out a suicide report every time he picks up the phone. “Everyone who calls the crisis line gets assessed. If they call trying to refill a prescription, because they just dialed the wrong number, they still get assessed,” he explained.

He’s a responder at the Veterans Crisis Line. It’s a hotline administered by the Department of Veterans Affairs that takes calls from veterans, active-duty soldiers and civilians who are seeking help for suicidal thoughts and behavior. Evans wants to know whether the person at risk has a plan and the necessary means to hurt himself — if he shows serious intent. “We find out if they have reasons for wanting to die. Then we try to find reasons for them to keep living,” Evans said.

In these tense conversations, responders like Evans try to comprehend the swirl of factors behind the caller’s state and to accurately gauge suicide risk. But Evans is still a responder — ideally, high-risk individuals would be identified before they feel the need to call the crisis line.

Doing that isn’t easy. There’s a long list of factors for suicide — marriage and financial problems, depression, alcohol and drug abuse, chronic pain, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), etc. — and each person’s mix could be different. It’s the kind of task that might be better suited for computers, not humans. (Research has repeatedly shown that doctors are not accurate in predicting who is at risk of suicide.)

With the help of people, the computers are getting better at it. Researchers have created — and are still honing — a model to predict who might commit suicide. That model relies on ...

EDITORIAL COMMENT:- It's about time that we moved past "Everyone knows" in the direction of "We can identify the non-obvious". Good work.