Project Details
Supervisor
Project area or title
Investigating the social determinants of suicide among young people: A comparative case study in UK and Australia
Description
This PhD will investigate the social determinants of suicide and suicidal behaviour among young people aged 12-25 years in the UK and Australia -two countries which have both experienced a steady increase in youth suicide rates over the past ten years.
An explanatory mixed-methods comparative case study approach will allow us to interrogate these trends to gain in-depth understanding into the contextual moderators and mechanisms of suicide and suicidal behaviour in the different international contexts.
Objectives
1. To investigate how individual risk factors (e.g., sociodemographic, clinical) interact with a range of social determinants to confer vulnerability for, or protect against, suicide and suicidal behaviour among young people aged 12-25 in the UK and Australia, using secondary data from large cohorts, national mental health surveys and coronial data.
2. To explore young people’s views and experiences of how different social determinants play out on an individual level and impact their suicidal experiences and vice versa, using in-depth semi-structured qualitative interviews with young people with lived experience of suicidal behaviour.
Theme
Children, Young People & Perinatal Mental Health
University
University of Birmingham
Specific Project Eligibility
https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/postgraduate/courses/research/psych/psychology.aspx