Most self-injurious events and all severe events will be captured on a population basis. Those who agree to be followed in the longitudinal cohort will provide invaluable prospective data almost impossible to obtain elsewhere in the US. Int the context of preventive interventions initiated by the public health reporting process, those who agree to participate in the study will form a unique cohort who could (and should) be followed for years. While the high base rate of suicide in this community is an ongoing disaster, it may well offer the potential for sufficient power to draw som predicitive conclusions and offer an important setting for evaluation of new prevention interventions as they emerge in the literature. The WMAT project is a partnership between local, state (or Tribal) and federal agencies. The NARCH initiative will support partnerships of American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) Tribes, Tribal organizations, or non-profit national or area Indian Health Boards, with institutions that conduct intensive academic-level biomedical and behavioral research;these partnerships are called Native American Research Centers for Health.
