PhD, QSO, MIASP, MAAS, MAFSP, MSPA, MIASR
Annette Beautrais has worked in suicide research since 1991. She is currently Research Associate Professor at the University of Otago, Christchurch and Visiting Associate Professor in the Department of Surgery at Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA.
She has been Principal Investigator with the Canterbury Suicide Project at the Christchurch School of Medicine and Health Sciences. She also works with the longitudinal birth cohort study, the Christchurch Health and Development Study. In these research positions she has had responsibility for: securing research funding; designing and conducting studies, analysing and preparing scientific papers and reports. She has conducted a series of research studies on a range of suicide and related issues including: the aetiology of suicide and serious suicide attempt behaviour in people of all ages; acute and longer term outcomes of people who have made serious suicide attempts; bereavement by suicide; first responders to suicide; restriction of access to means of suicide; international suicide prevention strategies; suicide in Asia; suicide and the media; interventions with suicide attempters. She teaches a post graduate course in suicide studies at the Christchurch School of Medicine and Health Sciences and also teaches at the University of Rochester, New York, international Summer Research Institute in Suicide Research studies. She has been an advisor on suicide and related issues to the Child Youth and Family national suicide consultation and monitoring project, Towards Wellbeing, since its inception.
Annette has published a large number of research papers and reports about various aspects of suicidal behaviour. She is a consultant to a number of research projects, within New Zealand and internationally, and works as a consultant to a number of international suicide research and prevention centres including the Developing Centre for Public Health and Population Interventions for the Prevention of Suicide at the University of Rochester, NY, funded by the NIMH as part of the implementation of the United States national suicide prevention strategy. She is currently the 1st Vice President of the International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP), a committee member of a number of the IASP Task Forces, including the Task Force on suicide bereavement and postvention, and Co-Editor in Chief of the IASP journal, CRISIS. She is also a member of the American Association of Suicidology, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, Suicide Prevention Australia, and an elected member of the International Academy for Suicide Research. She has been involved in the development of national suicide prevention strategies in New Zealand and overseas, and in the development of a range of guidelines about suicidal behaviour for different professional groups. She is on the editorial boards of Suicide and Life Threatening Behaviour and the Archives of Suicide Research, reviews scientific manuscripts for a wide range of psychiatric journals, and is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Within New Zealand she established the Suicide Research Network, a national internet-linked group of suicide researchers who attempt to translate research evidence into policy-relevant strategies.
Her research and teaching experience with families bereaved by suicide, individuals who have made suicide attempts, clinicians, first responders and other key stakeholders and her consultancy, research, reviewing, editorial, conference responsibilities, and international contacts place her in a position to learn about and participate in developments in suicide research and prevention internationally, and to provide advice to New Zealand groups, including CASA, about suicidal behaviour and suicide prevention.