In official relations with

the World Health Organization

President:

Vice President:

Vice President:

Prof. Brian Mishara

Prof. Heidi Hjelmeland

Prof. Kees van Heeringen

Treasurer:

General Secretary:

National Rep:

Organisational Rep:

Prof. Thomas Bronisch

Assoc. Prof. Annette Beautrais

Dr Murad Khan

Dr Jerry Reed

newsbu l l e t i nI n t e r n a t i o n a l A s s o c i a t i o n f o r S u i c i d e P r e v e n t i o n

M A R C H 2 0 0 9

FROM THE PRESIDENT

Brian L. Mishara, Ph.D mishara.brian@uqam.ca

Montevideo deadline extended

The deadline for submitting proposals for presentations at the XXVWorld Congress on Suicide Prevention of IASP in Montevideo,27–31 October 2009, has been extended until 10 April 2009. If youare planning to attend and submit a proposal, you have a bit moretime. Early bird registrations are coming in and we are impressed bythe number of interesting proposals received to date.

Beijing WHO Collaborating Center for Researchand Training in Suicide Prevention

On the 6th to 9th of March 2009 the Beijing Suicide Research andPrevention Center held an inaugural academic meeting and trainingcourse to highlight their designation as a World Health OrganizationCollaborating Center for Research and Training in Suicide Prevention,the first WHO collaborating center on suicide in a middle and lowincome country. This event, attended by Dr. Benedetto Saraceno,Director of the WHO Department of Mental Health and SubstanceAbuse, included scientific presentations by several prominentresearchers from around the world, as well as an impressive numberof papers by Chinese researchers and practitioners. The IASP Presidentwas there to speak, along with several IASP members, includingAnnette Beautrais, Mort Silverman, Lanny Berman, LakshmiVijayakumar, Lars Mehlum, David Gunnell, Paul Yip, Gustavo Turecki,Armin Schmidtke and Greg Larkin. The WHO collaborating centerstatus recognizes the many accomplishments of the center since itsfounding in 2002.

The Beijing Suicide Research and Prevention Center is a departmentof Beijing Hui Long Guan Hospital, which is administered by theBeijing Bureau of Health. Since its establishment, the center hasundertaken many international and domestic research projects.It has devised a China-specific methodology for studying suicide,developed culturally sensitive research instruments, and conductedseveral training programs on research methodology and psychologicalinterventions.

The center's Executive Director, Michael Phillips is actively involvedin IASP and his center's research activities include 19 major projects,ranging from a pesticide-control project to case controlled studiesof serious suicide attempters seen in hospital. Besides their numerousresearch activities, the center runs a national toll free 24 hourPsychological Crisis Hotline, offers outpatient and inpatient servicesto suicidal individuals, and provides individual and group supportservices for survivors, and website information and counselling.

Michael Phillips is the China National Representative for IASP andvice-chair of the IASP Council of National Representatives. The statusas a WHO Collaborating Center will help Michael and his 88 colleagueswork to achieve their goal of reducing the huge economic and socialburden of suicide in China, the rest of Asia and around the word.

Sri Lanka Sumithrayo was founded in 1974 byJoan de Mel an ex-Samaritan from London. It isthe only organisation in Sri Lanka whose primaryobjective is the prevention of suicide. Sumithrayowas set up in response to a rapidly increasing rateof suicide in the country: A 227% increase in suiciderates, from 9.7/100,000 in 1961 to 22/100,000 by1973. The first of the Sumithrayo Crisis InterventionCentres/Befriending Centres was opened inColombo in 1974 and now there are elevenBefriending Centres island-wide.

The meagre statistics that were available to Sumi-thrayo in the early 1980's suggested that approxi-mately 25% of all suicides were alcohol-related.Judging from people who contacted Sumithrayofor help it was felt that alcohol and other drugdependencies were major problems, especiallyamongst males. The Sumithrayo Drug DemandReduction Programme was set up in 1984 inColombo to address this situation.

The steady rise in rates of suicide in the 1960'scoincided with the widespread use of agro-chemicalsin the country. In 1995 the suicide rates peaked at47/100,000, one of the highest in the world. Sincethen suicide rates have gradually decreased and by2008 the rate was 20/100,000. Since the early1960's, the most common method of suicide hasbeen the ingestion of agricultural poisons.

The high rate of suicide,especially in rural areas,can be directly linked tothe availability of thesechemicals in village homes.

The Sumithrayo RuralProgramme was set upin 1996 in an effort tocontain the very highrates of suicide andattempted suicide in farming communities whereagro-chemicals are used in most acts of self harmand suicide. The programme presently operates in72 of the most suicide-prone villages in two of thefour most suicide-prone provinces in the country: the North Western and the Southern provinces.Many of these villages are in very remote areas,not easily accessible by road.

The Sumithrayo are experimenting with a three-pronged effort to contain the problem of suicidalbehaviour in villages: 1). Awareness and Education;2). Befriending, the offer of emotional support tothe depressed and despairing; 3). Provision oflockable secure storage boxes to farming familiesfor safely storing pesticides and other householdpoisons.

SRI LANKA SUMITHRAYO

Lakshmi Ratanayeke

Prof. Dan Rujescu

Dear all,We all could not understand what happened asour friend and great man Prof. Andrej Marusicpassed away. We all know what a powerful anddynamic scientist he was, and I am sure that hewould be very happy to see that his IASP Task Forceon Genetics will continue to be active in the future.

I was very much honored to be invited to act asthe new chair of this task force, and would like tothank all people responsible for this!

W will do my best to continue the successfulactivities of this Task Force, and would like to inviteIASP members who are interested in joining thistask force to contact me.

The major goals will be to promote studies ofgenetic aspects of suicide ideation and behaviouramong suicidologists on one side, and to promotegenetic studies of suicide ideation and behaviouramong behavioural geneticists on the other; thusforming an independent discipline of geneticsuicidology.

This Task Force will pro-vide a place where scien-tists interested in geneticsof suicidal behavior caneasily getin contact witheach other, can cooperateand stimulate the wholefield with new studiesand results.

We plan to create aforum on the IASP web-site where members of the Task Force will presentnew interesting papers on genetics and suicidalbehavior and will stimulate discussions open tothe whole audience.

Furthermore we will organize a workshop of theTask Force during IASP meetings to show progressand meet each other to discuss new developments.

I hope that many IASP members will join us!

Best wishes, Dan RujescuDan.Rujescu@med.uni-muenchen.de

Chair of the Genetics TaskForce

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newsbu l l e t i n

Please send any news items, articles of interest orconference announcements for the monthly newsbulletin to the editor, Dr Annette Beautrais:annette.beautrais@otago.ac.nz

XXV IASP WORLD CONGRESSMONTEVIDEO, URUGUAY

27–31 OCTOBER 2009

The social programwill include a symphony

concert at the newly

restored 150 year old

Teatro Solis

XXV IASPWORLD CONGRESS

World Suicide Prevention DayEach year, on 10th September, the DanishAssociation for Research and Education inSuicide Prevention organises World SuicidePrevention Day (WSPD) in Denmark, togetherwith Lifeline Denmark and the PsychiatryFoundation. In 2006 WSPD focused on malesuicides, in 2007 on suicides among the elderly,in 2008 suicide in mental illness, and in 2009,will focus on suicidal behaviour among youngwomen.

In association with WSPD, we announce thewinner of the Werther Award, an award given toa person who has contributed at a societal levelwith useful and sober information about suicide.The board deciding who should win the awardis constituted of representatives from the DanishAssociation for Research and Education inSuicide Prevention, the Organization of Bereavedafter Suicide, and Danish Journalists Association.

National network for suicideprevention centres in DenmarkWe have five suicide prevention centres, andthey have a common network meeting annually.At the 2008 meeting, the centres agreed toproduce a common white paper about theactivities and duties for regional competencecentres for suicide prevention, which could serveas the background for application for grants.

Telephoneand e-mailcounseling

Several nationalNGO's are involved intelephone and e-mailcounseling. The lar-gest organization isLife-line Denmark.

ResearchIn Denmark, we have a long tradition for register-based suicide research. In 2007, two reportbased dissertations were accepted and defendedat the University of Copenhagen. One dissertationwas about suicide risk and treatment withantidepressant treatment, the other suicideprevention and attempted suicide in Denmark.

Besides the dissertations, a range of papersregarding risk factors for suicide and attemptedsuicide in different groups have been publishedin high impact journals. Two ongoing, yetunpublished, studies are evaluating the effectof assertive intervention after suicide attempt ina randomized controlled design. Results will bepublished in the years to come.

IASP national representative,Professor Merete Nordentoft, merete.nordentoft@dadlnet.dk

Nominations for Awards(the Stengel Research Award, the Ringel Service Award,the Faberow Award for contributions to work with survivorsof suicide, and De Leo Fund Award for outstanding suicideresearch conducted in developing countries) close onApril 30, 2009. Nominations are open and details areavailable from the website: www.iasp.infoPlease note the new Criteria for the Stengel Award:“Outstanding and active researcher with at least 10 yearsof scientific activity in the field, as evidenced by numberand quality of publications in internationally acknowledgedjournals”.

Abstract submission closes on 10th April 2009.

Very early birds registration closes on March

31st. 2009. Please see the website for other

important congress dates www.iasp.info

Prof. Merete NordentoftIASP NationalRepresentativefor Denmark

42nd AAS Annual Conference: A Global Agenda onthe Science of Prevention, Treatment, & RecoveryApril 15 - 18, 2009 Westin St. Francis Hotel San Francisco, CAFor Additional Information: www.suicidology.org• 202-237-2280 • info@suicidology.org

THE 2ND AUSTRALIAN POSTVENTIONCONFERENCE 21st - 23rd May 2009Melbourne Convention Exhibition Centre, Australia

The Nobel Conference:The Role of Genetics in Promoting Suicide PreventionJune 8-10 2009 - Stockholm, SwedenRegistration is free. To register contact Tony Durkee(tony.durkee@ki.se) or Gergö Hadlaczky (gergo.hadlaczky@ki.se).Conference program: http://ki.se/content/1/c6/06/86/11/Program%20 Nobel %20Conference%20June%208-10%202009.pdf

COUNTRY REPORT

SUICIDE PREVENTION ACTIVITIES IN DENMARK

Further details at the conference website:www.hotelnetwork.com.au orwww.suicideprevention.salvos.org.au

This conference “Connectedness - A Link to Hope” provides a wonderfulopportunity for delegates throughout Australia and New Zealand tonetwork and share together their experience and knowledge.

The conference will bring together family and friends who have beenbereaved by suicide; the indigenous, teachers, young people, mentalhealth professionals, general practitioners and medical personnel,clergy, emergency services, researchers, service providers and funeralservice personnel.

International and Australian presentersinclude Prof Ian Webster, Prof GrahamMartin, Dr Judith Murray, Dr Sheila Clark,Dr Frank Campbell, Dr Michelle Linn-Gust,Dr Kari Dyregrov, Dr Scott Poland,Prof Onja Grad and Darrell Henry.