# Southwest Hub for American Indian Youth Suicide Prevention Research

> **NIH NIH U19** · JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY · 2020 · $162,225

## Abstract

The overall goal of the Southwest Hub for American Indian Youth Suicide Prevention Research (Southwest Hub) is to
establish a collaborative network of tribal leaders, investigators, interventionists, service providers and service users in
the Southwest region that will be managed by trusted scientific partner--Johns Hopkins Center for American Indian
Health (CAIH)--to pool intellectual resources, cultural assets and experience to overcome American Indian and Alaska
Native (AIAN) youth suicide disparity. Primary goals are to: 1) develop and test preventive strategies that can sustainably
reduce the burden of youth suicide and promote resilience in Native communities; 2) conduct outreach and
dissemination to promote additional tribal community engagement in research activities; and, 3) enable tribal leaders,
providers and policy makers to used science-based information to formulate mental health policies and programs to
reduce suicide. Specific aims are: Aim 1) Develop an Administrative Core to support communication, coordination of
activities and capacity building to facilitate, produce and share evidence to prevent youth suicide and promote
resilience, and apply relevant findings in Hub partners’ settings (White Mountain Apache, Navajo, San Carlos Apache,
Hualapai and Cherokee Nations), and in additional interested tribal communities through collaboration with other
regional Hubs and national allies. Aim 2) Undertake a rigorous Suicide Prevention Study to test a sequence of novel
preventive strategies that can be used by tribes to sustainably reduce the burden of AI youth suicide and promote
resilience. A key priority will be to demonstrate the effectiveness of task-shifting intervention administration to
culturally embedded paraprofessional community mental health workers (CMHWs). In the White Mountain Apache
setting, the primary research site for this Hub, we will build on a line of youth suicide prevention research that the Tribe
and CAIH have undertaken since 1994. It includes a robust tribally-mandated suicide surveillance and follow-up system
run by Apache CMHWs that is in early stages of replication by Navajo Nation, the secondary research site for this Hub.
The tribal-specific surveillance systems will aid the research teams in monitoring trends and patterns in self-harm prior
to, during and after the grant period; offer a unique means to recruit community-based samples of suicidal Native youth;
and provide a platform for testing strategies to prevent youth suicide and promote resilience. For collaborators in the
three satellite sites (San Carlos Apache, Hualapai, and Cherokee Nations), the development of parallel surveillance
systems, research skills and prevention interventions will be determined based on local policy and service priorities. Aim
3) Conduct outreach and disseminate science-based information for tribal leaders and allied partners, including other
Hubs, to formulate mental health policies and programs to reduce youth suici...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10076912
- **Project number:** 3U19MH113136-04S1
- **Recipient organization:** JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Mary Allison Barlow
- **Activity code:** U19 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $162,225
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2017-06-20 → 2022-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10076912

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10076912, Southwest Hub for American Indian Youth Suicide Prevention Research (3U19MH113136-04S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-21 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10076912. Licensed CC0.

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