Violence, addiction, suicide & beyond: Mark Ilgen helps Capitol Hill audience understand current knowledge

Amid a national crisis of substance use and overdose, and rising suicide rates, the national Injury and Violence Prevention Network sponsored a briefing for members of Congress and their staff on the intersections between these issues on Oct. 24.  IHPI member Mark Ilgen, Ph.D., who has studied these issues, spoke about the current state of knowledge and called for further research. 

Ilgen, a professor in the U-M Department of Psychiatry and Research Investigator in the Department of Veterans Affairs, and member of the Injury Center, spoke alongside Rep. Gwen Moore (D-WI), a champion for injury and violence prevention issues. They were joined by Dr. Debra Houry, Director of the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Dr. Kevin Osterhoudt, MD, Medical Director of the Poison Control Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Ilgen called on research agencies to:

• Integrate research on overdose and suicide, to enable spotting similarities and differences in patterns of risk
• Combine existing data resources by linking databases
• Examine multiple substances as risk factors for overdose