Suicide Loss Study

The impact of suicide reaches well-beyond individual suicide decedents. In collaboration with researchers at BU School of Public Health (MPI Jaimie Gradus, Ph.D.) and Aarhus University Department of Clinical Epidemiology, the goal of this project is to leverage Danish national registry data to understand the impact of suicide loss (i.e., knowing someone who died by suicide) on mental and physical health. We will develop a cohort of all first-degree relatives and cohabitants exposed to suicide loss between 1994 and 2024, as well as two comparison cohorts (1) exposed to accident loss (i.e., knowing someone who died in an accident), and (2) from the general population. We will identify mental and physical health ICD-coded diagnostic outcomes that are specific to suicide loss, including patterns of comorbidity, and examine how outcomes vary by time since loss, relationship type, and sex. This approach will inform novel and more precise targets for prevention and intervention within the field of suicide postvention.

Publications

Slimovitch, R., Flesaker, M., Rosellini, A. J., & Gradus, J. L. (2025). Suicide loss and its impact on mortality, mental, physical, and social health outcomes: a systematic review of registry-based studies. Harvard Reviews Psychiatry, 34, 159-171. PubMed

Brown, H. L., Selbe, S. M., Flesaker, M., Rosellini, A. J., Maple, M., Gradus, J. L., & Cerel, J. (2024). The impact of relationship type and closeness on mental health following suicide loss. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 54, 479-488. PubMed