# Prevention and Assessment of Risk in Teens (PART) Longitudinal Study

> **NIH NIH P50** · UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH AT PITTSBURGH · 2024 · $732,627

## Abstract

Suicide rates among adolescents have increased dramatically, particularly for Black youth. The majority of
suicide decedents have their last clinical contact in primary care. Thus, PPC settings are critical for identifying
and treating suicidal youth, but there are challenges with respect to identification, intervention, and
implementation. Annual screening for depression using self-report may miss identifying many high-risk youth,
as many suicide attempters, particular Black youth, do not report ideation prior to their suicidal behavior and
suicidal crises in youth can develop quickly. A second challenge is that once high-risk youth are identified, PPC
providers lack a reliable service delivery strategy to effectively treat these youth. A third challenge is that are
many barriers for identifying or intervening with Black youth at risk for suicide. Our Signature R01 addresses
these challenges as follows: In the first component of the R01, we will develop a predictive analytic platform for
PPC based on the electronic health record (EHR), mobile sensing, ecological momentary activity (EMA)
assessments of mood and suicidal thoughts and behaviors and self-reports to identify who is at risk and when
they are at imminent risk for suicide-related events. To accomplish this, we will recruit 2000 youth from PPC,
enriched for those at high suicidal risk, and the sample will be 35% Black. These youth will be followed with
interviews and self-reports at 1, 3, and 6 months following baseline and will have 6 months of data from mobile
sensing and daily and weekly EMA. We will: (1) develop a predictive algorithm using EHR of adolescents in PPC
settings; (2) identify dynamic changes in mobile sensing and EMA measures predicting imminent risk for suicide-
related events; (3) develop a data-fusion algorithm combining mobile sensing, EMA, self-reports, and EHR to
improve prediction; and (4) test and optimize its performance among Black youth. In the 2nd component, we
will conduct a randomized clinical trial (RCT) on a subset of this cohort, namely 900 youth at high suicidal risk.
We will compare treatment as usual (TAU) to a suite of tools developed in the current project period to guide the
pediatric provider in assessing suicidal risk, making a treatment recommendation, generating a safety plan that
is loaded on the patient’s smartphone, and launching an automated texting intervention to increase treatment
engagement. Based on our previous work, we hypothesize that this combined intervention, integrated Care to
Help At-Risk Teens (iCHART) will decrease suicidal events (suicidal behavior or ideation that results in an
emergency referral) by 50%, and the effects will be mediated by increases in referrals, treatment engagement,
and safety planning. We will use implementation science methods to assess barriers, facilitators, feasibility, and
acceptability of PART predictive analytics and the iCHART intervention to inform future implementation efforts
and to promote h...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10875387
- **Project number:** 5P50MH115838-07
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH AT PITTSBURGH
- **Principal Investigator:** Nadine M. Melhem
- **Activity code:** P50 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $732,627
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2018-07-17 → 2027-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10875387

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10875387, Prevention and Assessment of Risk in Teens (PART) Longitudinal Study (5P50MH115838-07). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10875387. Licensed CC0.

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