# The Role of Sleep Health in Proximal Suicide Risk among Ultra-High Risk Adolescents

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH AT PITTSBURGH · 2021 · $766,370

## Abstract

ABSTRACT
Suicide is the second leading cause of death among young people age 14–24, and rates in this age group are
increasing. Most suicide risk factors are distal (i.e., long-standing, static), thus informative regarding who is at
risk, but not when. As such, our ability to reliably predict near-term suicide risk among vulnerable populations
remains grossly inadequate.
Studies consistently demonstrate a link between subjective sleep disturbances and the continuum of suicidality.
Yet, sleep is a complex behavior that can be measured along multiple dimensions and at varying levels of
analysis. Furthermore, little attention has been paid to the role of normative biological and psychosocial
developmental processes that further contribute to dynamic changes in risk related to sleep disturbance. Such
changes in sleep are particularly dramatic during adolescence. Studies also have not examined how sleep
interacts with other known pathways, such as dysregulation in affective, cognitive and arousal-related systems,
to lead to suicidality in vulnerable youth.
We thus propose to conduct an 8-week prospective multi-method study of sleep health and suicidal thoughts
and behavior in a transdiagnostic sample of ultra-high risk adolescents (14-18) who have recently enrolled in an
Intensive Outpatient or Partial Hospitalization Program. We will capitalize on the extant clinical and research
infrastructures to compare sleep-suicide associations and plausible affective, cognitive and arousal-related
mechanisms using self-report, behavioral, lab task paradigms and physiology in adolescents at ultra-high risk
for suicide.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10107391
- **Project number:** 1R01MH124907-01
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH AT PITTSBURGH
- **Principal Investigator:** PETER L FRANZEN
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $766,370
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2021-05-01 → 2025-02-28

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10107391

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10107391, The Role of Sleep Health in Proximal Suicide Risk among Ultra-High Risk Adolescents (1R01MH124907-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10107391. Licensed CC0.

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