Interdisciplinary research at Georgia Southern shows striking trends in suicide risk among educators

Suicide claims more than 49,000 lives in the U.S. annually and more than 700,000 globally, according to the National Institutes of Health. Despite these numbers, minimal research had been published on the characteristics of the U.S. K-12 educators who died by suicide between 2001 and 2025. 

Researchers from Georgia Southern University addressed that.

The study examined the suicides of 1,548 primary and secondary school educators, who died between 2018 and 2021. Using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Violent Death Reporting System, the researchers accounted for sex, age, race, marital status, injury time, injury date and weapon type in each case.

Results showed that white males, those over the age of 60 and those who had never been married showed up most often in the dataset. Findings also indicated suicides were much more likely to occur during school hours. Injury dates most commonly occurred on Mondays.

Identifying specific patterns in a large study can potentially change how educational systems view the occupation in relation to mental health, according to lead author Ed Mondor, Ph.D.,associate professor of biology in Georgia Southern University’s College of Science and Mathematics.

“The research highlights that anticipatory stress, often dismissed as simply ‘part of the job,’ may have serious consequences,” he explained. “At the institutional level, it emphasizes the importance of proactive mental health resources and workload policies that acknowledge the emotional demands of teaching.”

The research is also notable for the various perspectives from the University’s College of Science and Mathematics (COSM), College of Behavioral and Social Sciences (CBSS), Waters College of Health Professions (WCHP), and Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health (JPHCOPH), spanning multiple disciplines, including forensic science, public health and public policy.

In total, eight faculty members contributed to the publication of “Who’s Most at Risk? Examining Suicide Characteristics in Primary and Secondary Educators,” in the October 2025 edition of Psychology in the Schools.

Georgia Southern’s Institute for Health Logistics and Analytics (IHLA) made the partnership possible through their ‘One Health’ approach. Mondor brought an expertise in forensic science, while Leanne Confer, Ph.D. and Ryan Lofaro, Ph.D. from CBSS lent a public policy perspective. Beth McGee, Ph.D., and Spencer Riner, also from CBSS informed the publication from a health and public safety standpoint, respectively. Jacquelyn Mesenbrink-Sainz, DrPH from WCHP and Katie Mercer, DrPH, from JPHCOPH added a public health lens.

“We bring together faculty, staff and students from across disciplines to advance community health through Interdisciplinary Research Teams,” said Jessica Schwind, Ph.D., co-author of the paper and director of IHLA.

The group views this publication as a first step. They are already beginning work on another publication. “This paper led to another manuscript that is currently under review,” said Confer. 

“This time we’re taking a closer look at the people who were noted as having a ‘job-related problem’ prior to their suicide,” she explained. “We want to further explore how the occupation may contribute to these events.”