(PS11-3) A Network Analysis of Social Determinants of Health and Youth Suicide Risk at the Neighborhood-level

Research has documented that the conditions in the environment in which individuals are born, live, attain education, work, and age (i.e., social determinants of health), can result in poor health outcomes and risks. While social determinants of health have been linked to poor health outcomes in youth populations (e.g., rates of anxiety, depression, substance misuse), little is known about the relationships between these determinants and youth suicide risk. To analyze these relationships, a network analysis will be performed utilizing youth suicide risk screening data from electronic health records of a large Southern hospital, United States Census Bureau census tract level data for Harris County, TX, and Houston Police Department’s crime data. Through the statistical regularization technique, graphical least absolute shrinkage and selection operator, an estimated network of partial correlations for social determinants of health and youth suicide-related thoughts and behaviors for census tracts within Harris County, TX, will be developed. The developed network will provide insight into directly connected risk and protective factors of neighborhood-level youth suicide-related thoughts and behaviors. Additionally, the analysis will map linear prediction and multicollinearity among network factors, resulting in the ability to develop new hypotheses that have not yet been explored amongst social determinants of health and youth suicide. These results will identify possible target mechanistic factors associated with youth suicide risk at the neighborhood-level.