Center[s] for Disease Control and Prevention to conduct suicide-cluster study in Palo Alto
November 20, 2015
The CDC will soon be conducting a special type of in-depth epidemiological study of Palo Alto, California’s teen suicide clusters. The Palo Alto school district requested this study because it has already engaged in other suicide prevention efforts and is still experiencing teen suicide clusters. This type of study, an “Epi-Aid,” is a short-term investigation of “serious and urgent public health problems” in response to a formal request for assistance from states, federal agencies, international organizations, or other entities, according to a CDC report. In Palo Alto, the school district and other organizations in the community will be involved in developing the objectives for the study. They will probably include comparing Palo Alto to nearby communities and looking for risk and protective factors associated with the suicide clusters. The study will be conducted quickly, with results known in a few weeks and a full report available in several months. Epi-Aid studies have already been carried out in other communities with youth suicide clusters, including Fairfax County, Virginia.
Spark Extra! To learn more about the use of CDC Epi-Aids to investigate youth suicide, see the report on the Epi-Aid study in Fairfax County, Virginia.