Professor Diego De Leo
Griffith University, QLD
Evaluation of Mental Health Service Provision 2008
Professor Diego De Leo is Professor of Psychiatry, Doctor of Science and Director of the Australian Institute for Suicide Research and Prevention at Griffith University, Brisbane, and the World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre for Research and Training in Suicide Prevention.
Professor De Leo is Principal Adviser, WHO Global Network on Suicide Prevention, Past President of the International Association for Suicide Prevention and Past President of the International Academy for Suicide Research. He serves as a Board Member of the Australian Suicide Prevention Advisory Council (ASPAC) and is Chair of the Advisory Committee to the Queensland Government on Suicide Strategy.
Professor De Leo has successfully established and managed much high-level international collaboration. His long association with the WHO has led to the creation of seven collaborative studies including the WHO/SUPRE-MISS (SUicide PREvention – Multisite Intervention Study on Suicide. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the journal CRISIS and a member of the editorial boards for several internationally renowned refereed journals and has published extensively with 210 refereed journal articles, 125 book chapters, and 25 books published in the past 25 years. He has given over 150 conference presentations. Professor De Leo has 7 international awards, and in 1997 was appointed Director of the first WHO Collaborating Centre for Training and Research in Suicide Prevention.
SUMMARY OF PROJECT:
“The incidence of suicidal behaviours in indigenous communities in Queensland – evaluation & development of baseline data”
Young Indigenous males in Queensland are three times as likely to commit suicide as their non-indigenous counterparts.
In 2007 Professor Diego De Leo, from the Australian Institute for Suicide Research and Prevention at Griffith University, was awarded an Australian Rotary Health grant to evaluate an intervention aimed at preventing suicide in Aboriginal communities.
PROGRESS REPORT:
While the focus on Indigenous suicide is already a highly sensitive issue, the current Commonwealth intervention in Indigenous communities in far North Queensland has placed even greater pressure on the need for sensitivity in continuing this research.
Key areas include:
♦ the development of Men’s Groups that focus on redeveloping a
leadership role within Indigenous communities
♦ life skills assistance
♦ the distribution of information on mental health
♦ the development of a database detailing the incidence of
suicidal behaviours within indigenous communities in Far
North Queensland
♦ engaging research partners with direct links to far North
Queensland Indigenous communities
♦ securing input from other agencies e.g the Queensland Suicide
Register
♦ location of the study survey – predominately communities in
far North Queensland but some Indigenous communities from
southern Queensland have been considered
♦ development of a culturally sensitive questionnaire
♦ appointment of staff to support specific engagement with
communities and finalise the survey