7th May 2025

17:30 Arrival (soft drinks and light refreshments)

Talk : 18:15 -19:30 

'Life Under Pressure: The Social Roots of Youth Suicide and What to Do About Them'

The 21st century has seen rising rates of youth suicide, requiring we reconsider how we build social worlds where youth can thrive…or get connected to potentially life-saving care when needed. Learning from the experiences of one community with a tragic history of recurring youth suicides – Poplar Grove (a pseudonym) – this presentation will illuminate how to better support youth mental health through an enhanced understanding of the social roots of youth suicide.

Chair: Professor Rory O'Connor, University of Glasgow

Reflections: Haylis Smith, National Delivery Lead, Suicide Prevention, Scotland

This event is supported by the Wellcome funded Suicide Cultures: Reimagining Suicide Research project, University of Edinburgh

Dr. Anna S. Mueller, PhD, is the Luther Dana Waterman Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and the Senior Research Program Leader for Mental Illness, Suicide & Addiction at the Irsay Institute at Indiana University Bloomington. She is a leading expert on youth suicide and suicide prevention/postvention in schools and has won numerous awards for her contributions to suicide prevention science, including the Edwin Shneidman Award from the American Association of Suicidology. She is co-author of the book Life under Pressure: The Social Roots of Youth Suicide and What to Do About Them (2024) and principal investigator on the Social Worlds & Youth Well-Being Study and the Connect to Care in Schools Study. As a community-engaged researcher, Mueller is passionate about collaborating with schools, families, and teens to translate suicide prevention science into policies that work.

Dr. Seth Abrutyn is Professor of Sociology at the University of British Columbia, where he studies Sociological Theory, Youth Suicide and Mental Health, Emotions, Social Psychology, and Culture. His theoretical and empirical interests center on how and why social environments shape behavior and motivation. His work can be read in the American Sociological Review, Sociological Theory, Sociological Forum, and Social Forces, among other outlets. Recently, he and his co-author Anna Mueller recently published a book on the social roots of adolescent suicide, Life Under Pressure, that Malcolm Gladwell described as “a devastating work of scholarship.” In addition, he is the editor of Springer’s Handbook of Contemporary Sociological Theory and co-editor of Springer’s Handbook of Classical Sociological Theory, and is currently co-editor of the American Sociological Association's public-facing journal, Contexts.

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