# Aging, Major Life Transitions, and Suicide Risk

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN AT ANN ARBOR · 2024 · $776,860

## Abstract

SUMMARY
Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the US, with over 42,000 cases annually. There is an urgent need
to identify modifiable risk factors that can inform public health prevention strategies. This proposed research
seeks to leverage and integrate several existing datasets to support novel secondary analyses aimed at
identifying predictors, moderators, and mitigators of suicide risk from a life course approach. This proposal will
(1) Examine how major life transitions in four domains (e.g., social relationships, health, work/school, and
residence/moving) relate to suicide-risk behaviors and suicide mortality over the life span; and (2) Examine
individual-level moderators (e.g., age, sex, race/ethnicity, mental health history, and medical comorbidities) of
the relationship between major life transitions and suicide risk over the life span; and (3) Examine how
contextual characteristics (e.g., neighborhood socioeconomic status, residential segregation, indicators of
social capital) moderate the relationship between major life transitions and suicide risk over the life span. This
proposed research will use two ongoing, nationally-representative longitudinal studies that collectively cover
adulthood: the Americans’ Changing Lives (ACL, ages 25+, surveyed six times since 1986) and the Health and
Retirement Study (HRS, ages 51+ surveyed biennially since 1992). The ACL and HRS have multiple measures
of suicide-risk behaviors and are being linked to the National Death Index (NDI) to identify suicide deaths. The
ACL and HRS have existing linkages to multiple external datasets which index macro-level contextual
characteristics. In addition, we will leverage restricted-access data from the National Violent Death Reporting
System (NVDRS), the most comprehensive registry of suicide mortality in the US (n~250,000 suicide deaths of
all ages from 2003-2018), which contains both quantitative and qualitative data on major life transitions in the
context of suicide mortality. We will link the NVDRS data using geographic identifiers to multiple external
datasets to characterize macro-level contextual moderators of suicide mortality. Impact: Empirical research on
the long-term influences of complex, intersecting and time-varying factors that contribute to suicide risk within
and across subpopulations is lacking. This project will address this gap in scientific understanding by providing
an innovative, integrated set of analyses that seek to comprehensively examine the ways that life transitions
intersect with individual and macro-level characteristics to shape suicide risk over the life span. Findings will
examine theorized but under-researched risk factors, clarify potential points of engagement, and inform
targeting and prioritization of existing preventive interventions.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10740901
- **Project number:** 5R01MH128198-03
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN AT ANN ARBOR
- **Principal Investigator:** Briana Mezuk
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $776,860
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2022-02-01 → 2026-11-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10740901

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10740901, Aging, Major Life Transitions, and Suicide Risk (5R01MH128198-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10740901. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*