Public health researchers in Michigan and Rhode Island will study ways to reduce suicides among recently released jail inmates, reports the Associated Press. Michigan State University said Jennifer Johnson of its College of Human Medicine was awarded $6.8 million by the National Institute of Mental Health and National Institute of Justice to help examine the problem.
Johnson, a C.S. Mott endowed professor of public health, will be conducting the study with Lauren Weinstock, associate professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University. The four-year study, known as the SPIRIT Trial (Suicide Prevention Intervention for at-Risk Individuals in Transition) will follow 800 released detainees from the Genesee County Jail in Flint, Mi., and the Department of Corrections in Cranston, R.I.