Project Grant R01MH142532

The National Institute of Mental Health awarded the University of Wisconsin - Madison $747,342 on September 1, 2026, under the Mental Health Research Grants program (CFDA 93.242) to conduct an examination of social connection in suicide risk during the college transition.

The project leverages multimodal, high-resolution assessments to elucidate how social connection across digital and physical contexts contributes to suicide risk during the transition to college. The research will collect near-continuous smartphone screenshots (screenomics) and geolocation data alongside daily diaries of subjective connectedness and suicidal thoughts and behaviors across four months during participants' first college semester. The study will examine convergence and divergence between objective and subjective indicators of connectedness, evaluate how digital social behaviors prospectively predict daily and longitudinal suicidal thought and behavior patterns, and test sex differences in these dynamic processes. Contextualized geolocation data will clarify the physical environments in which connection and risk unfold.

This is a Project Grant assistance type with a period of performance from September 1, 2026, through May 31, 2031, and place of performance in Madison, Wisconsin. The research addresses suicide as the second leading cause of death among individuals aged 15–24, with the college transition representing a particularly vulnerable window marked by major social and psychological adjustments that heighten distress and suicide risk.