This proposal is to develop the University of Pennsylvania’s Innovation in Suicide Prevention Implementation
Research (INSPIRE) Center. Suicide is a leading cause of death in the US that disproportionately affects
minority and disenfranchised populations, including Blacks, Hispanics and sexual/gender minorities. Yet, these
groups often are not included in suicide prevention research. Guided by a conceptual model based on the
Integrated Behavior Model, which posits that organizational culture, policies, and resources (or lack thereof)
impact the provider’s attributes and behaviors, INSPIRE brings together psychology, implementation science,
health economics, machine learning, health information technology, psychiatry and participatory research
experts to apply innovative interdisciplinary approaches to suicide prevention. INSPIRE’s overarching goals are
to develop and adapt practice-based and other suicide prevention interventions for underserved groups and to
design and test implementation strategies to optimize how evidence-based practices can be brought to scale
efficiently and with high fidelity, for optimal effectiveness. INSPIRE will prioritize strategies that can be rapidly
deployed in a range of practice settings, including those with limited resources, thereby increasing their reach
and public health impact. Penn INSPIRE will use state-of-the-science methods from participatory research to
actively engage stakeholders from many sectors – including patients, providers, and payers – at every level of
its work to accomplish its Specific Aims. INSPIRE will apply innovative, interdisciplinary behavior change and
implementation science methods to develop, adapt, and evaluate cost effective interventions. A Signature
Project will use a stepped wedge study design to test an innovative organizational strategy that leverages
telehealth to deliver high quality Safety Planning Intervention and follow-up services in Emergency Departments.
Three Exploratory Projects will test novel strategies for suicide prevention across individual, clinician, and
organizational levels and with specific vulnerable populations that will lay the foundation for more definitive
studies. INSPIRE will also support 10 pilot projects and an innovative Methods Core that will develop and test
new methods to advance research at the intersection of suicide prevention and implementation science. The
Suicide Prevention Scholars Program will expand the cadre of suicide prevention researchers by engaging both
emerging investigators and established scientists who do not currently work on suicide prevention – particularly
those from groups under-represented in research – through content, design. and methodological mentoring and
capacity-building. By catalyzing interdisciplinary, cross-sector collaborations and advancing suicide prevention
research, care, and policy both locally and nationally, we will develop cost-effective, practical, and efficient ways
to implement evidence-based suicide prevention interventions. INSPIRE is poised to be transformational for
suicide prevention.