Illustration credit: Midjourney
Suicide rates in the U.S. have been rising at an alarming rate over the past few decades, with rates among veterans being 1.5 times higher than those of the general public, USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work‘s study shows.
While research shows that intervention is key to preventing suicide, many cases go unreported, particularly within military populations, due to societal pressure, stigmas around mental health and biases in reporting.
A major root cause behind these challenges is that mental illnesses like depression still lack a standard testing method, as diagnoses today still mainly rely on self-reporting tools such as surveys and clinical interviews. This remains a critical challenge across mental illnesses.
Researchers and clinical psychiatrists face an urgent need to develop objective testing metrics and tools that can help classify mental health conditions, as well as predict suicidal behaviors.
