Manjula Weerasinghe PhD fellow - Rajarata University of Sri Lanka |
-
01.02.2017-28.02.2017
Preventing pesticide suicides by restricting access from shops - exploratory and pilot studies
Manjula Weerasinghe received his Master degree in Disaster management from University of Peradeniya. Currently, he is a PhD fellow in Public Health, attached to Department of Community Medicine at Rajarata University of Sri Lanka. Manjula’s main research interest is suicide prevention. More than a decade he and his colleagues have been working with rural communities in Sri Lanka to identify most feasible interventions to prevent pesticide self-poisoning. This work is multidisciplinary: A combination of Agriculture, Medical Anthropology and Public Health. SHORT DESCRIPTION OF THE PROJECT Title: Preventing pesticide suicides by restricting access through vendors - exploratory and pilot studies Summary: Hundreds of thousands of people die by suicide following pesticide ingestion every year. In South Asia, up to one in five individuals who use pesticides for self-poisoning purchased them from a shop immediately prior to the event. It is unknown whether interventions implemented at the point of sale are acceptable or effective. The aim of the study was to identify an intervention that has the potential to be effective in reducing access to pesticide from shops for self-poisoning. This aim was addressed through four parts of the study; 1) A case control study to identify risk factors associated with purchasing pesticide from shops for self-poisoning. 2) A literature review to identify potential interventions through past experiences 3) A stakeholder analysis to identify the most promising intervention for field test. 4) A pilot study to test the feasibility and acceptability selected intervention. The results will now be incorporated into a large cluster RCT. The findings may well allow many tens of thousands of deaths to be prevented over the next decade. Supervisors: Professor Suneth Agampodi (Rajarata University of Sri Lanka) and Professor Flemming Konradsen (University of Copenhagen) Funding Body: American Foundation for Suicide Prevention