South Asia Self-Harm Initiative (SASHI)

Global Challenge Research Fund: South Asia Self Harm research capability building Initiative (GCRF-SASHI)

SASHI formed in late 2015 as a collaboration led by the Centre for Mental Health and Society at Bangor University. It is a partnership between researchers working in South Asia and the UK. The purpose of the GCRF-SASHI project is to help to find effective responses to self-harm and suicide in South Asia by building research infrastructure and promoting expertise, with a particular emphasis on high quality surveillance systems. This will allow each country to build a body of evidence to facilitate the development of culturally relevant and effective interventions, both social and medical.

Background

Self-harm (SH) is amongst the top 25 leading causes of death globally
Rates of SH are high in South Asia, particularly in rural settings
The economic burden of SH is both direct (family costs of treatment, lost income due to death and disability) and indirect (significant social costs)
Reducing suicide mortality is a Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicator

Intended Impact of the project

To create a sustainable legacy of continuing value for practitioners and researchers, and for policy formation
To create a platform built around hospital and primary care SH surveillance
To facilitate the collection of new empirical evidence in each country on the prevalence, antecedents & outcomes of SH
To better understand what affects help-seeking behaviour in South Asia
To identify causal factors that are amenable to intervention
To help develop new service models & action plans based on local evidence
To make extensive use of train-the-trainer models and experiential training
To enhance the skill set of local research communities
To develop and disseminate a tool kit for establishing SH registers in low- and middle-income countries
Ultimately, to contribute to a reduction in the rates of SH in South Asia