UNC School of Education faculty members Dorothy L. Espelage, Ph.D., and Marisa E. Marraccini, Ph.D., in collaboration with Nationwide Children’s Hospital and additional partners, will lead North Carolina efforts in a groundbreaking study aimed at reducing adolescent suicide-related risk through school-based prevention programs. The multi-state project is supported by an approximately $16 million funding award from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI).
The study, “Building Resilience in Teens through Education” (BRITE), will compare the effectiveness of two widely used school-based suicide prevention programs — Signs of Suicide and Youth Aware of Mental Health — as well as a combined approach. Researchers will examine which interventions work best overall, for which students, and in which school contexts, focusing on outcomes such as suicidal ideation, school connectedness, mental health knowledge, and help-seeking behaviors.
The study will also place trained mental health interventionists in participating communities across North Carolina, Ohio, Idaho, and Washington, strengthening local capacity and ensuring all schools involved have access to an evidence-based suicide prevention program.
Espelage, William C. Friday Distinguished Professor of Education, serves as the site principal investigator for North Carolina, and Marraccini, the Donald & Justeen Tarbet Faculty Scholar in Education, is the site co-principal investigator. They will lead BRITE efforts in North Carolina alongside UNC-Chapel Hill collaborators from the School of Medicine’s Department of Psychiatry: Adam Miller, Ph.D.; Danielle Roubinov, Ph.D.; and Nathaniel Sowa, M.D., Ph.D.
BRITE Trial principal investigators include Jennifer L. Hughes, Ph.D., MPH, a clinical psychologist in the Center for Suicide Prevention and Research at The Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, and Anna Radin, DrPH, MPH, an applied research scientist at St. Luke’s Health System in Idaho.
“This award reflects the School’s commitment to a whole-child approach by addressing challenges at the intersection of education, mental health, and public policy,” said Jill V. Hamm, Dean of the School and William C. Friday Distinguished Professor of Education. “This study has the potential to strengthen school communities, expand access to mental health services, and improve the lives of adolescents and educators.”
Youth suicide remains a critical public health issue, with schools increasingly serving as the front line for prevention and early intervention. Across North Carolina and the nation, districts face growing mental health needs amid barriers including limited staffing and insufficient access to trained professionals. BRITE aims to generate practical, real-world evidence to help schools make informed decisions about supporting students’ mental health.
“Our goal is to create schools that are supportive and protective for all youth through peer support and help-seeking,” Espelage said. “This is a highly collaborative project, with each state site engaging school advisory boards, parent-student advisory boards, and dissemination boards throughout the study.”
During summer 2025, Espelage and Marraccini held more than 20 listening sessions with North Carolina school districts and communities to understand local needs and priorities. These sessions informed the study’s design and led to letters of interest from potential district partners.
“Findings from this study have the potential to identify which suicide prevention program is most effective for our students in North Carolina,” Marraccini said. “The research design allows all participating schools to have access to an evidence-based suicide prevention program, including trained interventionists to deliver the program, but also provides insights into which intervention works for whom. This is a rare opportunity in which we hope to see improvements in youth mental health across all participating schools but also identify practical insights into the best approach to use and strategies for ensuring success.”
PCORI (pcori.org) is a non-profit organization with a mission to fund research designed to provide patients, their caregivers and clinicians with the evidence-based information needed to make better-informed health care decisions.