# Hispanic Firearm Suicide Decedents: Identifying Circumstances and Typologies with National Violent Death Reporting System Data

> **NIH NIH R21** · UTAH STATE HIGHER EDUCATION SYSTEM--UNIVERSITY OF UTAH · 2024 · $231,000

## Abstract

Nearly 1 in 2 Hispanic adult suicide deaths involves a firearm, the most lethal suicide method. However,
there are critical gaps in characterizing Hispanic firearm suicide deaths and identifying opportunities for
preventing firearm suicide among Hispanic adults. Our objectives are to leverage the power of machine
learning (ML) to identify circumstances preceding firearm suicides among Hispanic adults and generate new
information on the typology of Hispanic adult firearm suicide decedents. We propose to achieve these
objectives through the following Specific Aims: (1) Develop a natural language processing (NLP) pipeline to
identify and code circumstances preceding firearm suicide deaths among Hispanic adults and (2) Establish
mutually-exclusive clinical typologies of Hispanic adult firearm suicide decedents with distinct combinations of
demographic characteristics and circumstances preceding death. This project will ultimately provide critical
information that will be used to inform targeted intervention and evaluation opportunities through a future R01,
such as implementing lethal means counseling, advising when and for which patients the intervention should
be provided.
 The proposed research is significant for two reasons. First, this project will fill a critical need for
identifying key circumstances preceding highly-lethal firearm suicide deaths among Hispanic adults. Since the
circumstances preceding firearm suicide death can differ by race/ethnicity, we will use NIMHD’s Health
Disparities Research Framework to organize how we categorize the circumstances at the individual level.
Second, this project will generate mutually-exclusive clinical typologies of Hispanic adult firearm suicide
decedents, including insights into the distinct demographic characteristics and circumstances experienced by
different subgroups of Hispanic adult firearm suicide decedents.
 The proposed research is innovative for three reasons. First, this will be among the first studies to
leverage free-text information abstracted from coroner/medical examiner (CME) and law enforcement (LE)
reports to generate much-needed information on the circumstances preceding Hispanic firearm suicides.
Second, this will be the first project to leverage the power of NLP and ML with free-text CME and LE data to
predict common circumstances preceding firearm suicide death among Hispanics quickly and accurately while
also creating standalone, annotated NLP tools for other users and applications. Third, this will be the first study
funded to establish distinct subgroups of Hispanic firearm suicide decedents and their unique combinations of
demographic and circumstance characteristics.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 11057928
- **Project number:** 1R21MD019447-01A1
- **Recipient organization:** UTAH STATE HIGHER EDUCATION SYSTEM--UNIVERSITY OF UTAH
- **Principal Investigator:** Evan Victor Goldstein
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $231,000
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2024-09-22 → 2026-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/11057928

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 11057928, Hispanic Firearm Suicide Decedents: Identifying Circumstances and Typologies with National Violent Death Reporting System Data (1R21MD019447-01A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/11057928. Licensed CC0.

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