MIRECC / CoE

Current Project Status

The first national wave of ASCEND closed for participation in July 2022. Analyses are in progress. Check back here for updates, including results and publications from ASCEND.

The ASCEND project is ongoing and relies on your participation and input as it plans each step. With your assistance, we will ultimately:

• Better understand factors that increase both risk and resilience for suicide
• Improve existing suicide prevention programs
• Create new, tailored suicide prevention programs for Veterans both in VA healthcare and in local communities
• Inform public policy on both community and national levels

Click on image to enlarge

Milestone #1

- Collected pilot data from 567 Veterans (December 2020 through February 2021)

- Findings from this pilot study were used to help us improve our study methods and the survey questions that we used in the first wave of the national survey.

Milestone #2

- Collected Wave 1 data from over 17,500 Veterans (February through July 2022) - Thank you to all the veterans who participated!

- We are analyzing Wave 1 data and will share findings when they are available

- Findings from Wave 1 will be used to enhance suicide prevention programs and to inform our methods for future waves of ASCEND.

Next Milestones

We will reflect on our experiences and findings from Wave 1 national survey and continue to refine ASCEND.

We aim to send out new surveys every year or two.

Published ASCEND Findings

Click on the links below to view publications and more from ASCEND.

Check back for more developments - at every stage we will keep you informed and share more preliminary results as they become available.

- ASCEND for veteran suicide prevention: Enhancing surveillance to save lives (2022)

- Veteran Engagement in Survey Research to Prevent Suicide (2023)

COMIRB # 20-0719 / PI: Hoffmire