Research Collaborations
To be a Research Collaborator, you must meet the following key requirements:
- Be affiliated with an academic or research institution. This includes obtaining the approval of an Institutional Review Board (IRB), having a Principal Investigator that’s a full-time employee of the institution, and the written approval of your institution’s Office of Research or equivalent office.
- Expect to spend 3+ months working with our de-identified, anonymized data.
- Have the technical expertise to work with massive data sets.
- Complete our volunteer Crisis Counselor training to better understand our data.
- Be a U.S. or Canadian citizen. We need this for background checks.
Please note that we are currently not accepting new applications. We are excited to hear from you in June 2023 when our applications reopen.
Mental Health Research and Machine Learning Insights
Learn more about findings from our data on Crisis Text Line’s Research and Development Blog.
Published Research
See the list of published papers from research collaboraters below. We also summarize some of our findings on our Research and Development blog.
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This report was created in partnership with Hopelab, and Well Being Trust, to illuminate the most pressing crises on the minds of young texters – and the coping mechanisms that made them feel better. Lead Authors: Tiffany Meshkat, Margaret Meagher, Nancy Pellowski Wiger, Dua Shamsi, Lili Torok. Contributing Authors: Shannon Green, Devyani Singh.
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Researchers sought to understand the texter population served by Crisis Text Line from 2017-2018. The findings support the decision to include texting in the national 988 implementation. Researchers: Anthony R. Pisani, Madelyn S. Gould, Carlos Gallo, Ashkan Ertefaie, Caroline Kelberman, Donald Harrington, Daniel Weller, Shannon Green; 2022
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Researchers assessed texter's perceptions of the effectiveness of Crisis Text Line from. Nearly 90% of suicidal texters reported that the conversation was helpful, and nearly half reported being less suicidal. Researchers: Madelyn Gould, Anthony Pisani, Carlos Gallo, Ashkan Ertefaie, Donald Harrington, Caroline Kelberman, Shannon Green; 2022.
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Researchers investigated the impacts of wildfires and COVID-19 on mental health crisis help-seeking patterns after the worst wildfire season on record. Researchers: Researchers: Margaret M. Sugg, Jennifer D. Runkle, Sarah N. Hajnos, Shannon Green, Kurt D. Michael; 2021.
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Researchers examined grief and bereavement in the context of a pandemic, particularly among young people during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Researchers: Researchers: Stella R. Harden, Jennifer D. Runkle, Jaclyn Weiser, Shannon Green, Margaret M. Sugg; 2021.
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Researchers studied help-seeking behavior before and after Hurricane Florence. They found an immediate increase in crisis texts for stress/anxiety and suicide. Findings show a need for support following a weather disaster. Researchers: Jennifer D. Runkle, Kurt D. Michael, Scott S. Stevens, Margaret M. Sugg; 2021.
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Researchers compared proposed anti-LGBTQ legislation to the volume of Crisis Text Line conversations from LGBTQ texters under 18 years old and suggest that proposed anti-LGBTQ legislation may contribute to LGBTQ youth’s experiences of emotional distress. Researchers: Dominique Parris, Emily Fulks, Claire Kelley
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Researchers sought to understand how text message-based crisis counseling facilitates child maltreatment disclosures. The findings of this study have important implications for the use of technology to support disclosure of child maltreatment. Researchers: Laura Schwab-Reese, Nitya Kanuri, Scottye Cash; 2019.
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Researchers studied the dynamic between forwards and backwards oriented phrasing in crisis counseling. Findings revealed that focusing on next steps happens at the expense of building rapport, while focusing on exploring can stall progress towards a goal. Researchers: Justine Zhang, Cristian Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil; 2020.
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Researchers analyzed the engagement of subgroups of texters who reported suicidality. They found that most texters who reported suicidal ideation had similar issues; the difference in issues may inform how Crisis Counselors tailor strategies. Researchers: Hannah Selene Szlyk, Kimberly Beth Roth, Víctor García-Perdomo; Psychiatric Services, 2019.
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Researchers studied crisis patterns in youth following 13 Reasons Why (Season 2) and celebrity suicides. They found that both were followed by an abrupt rise in crisis help-seeking among adolescents. Researchers: Margaret M. Sugg, Kurt D. Michael, Scott S.Stevens, Robert Filbin, Jaclyn Weiser, Jennifer D. Runkle; 2019.
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Researchers explored how Crisis Counselors change their linguistic behavior with experience. Findings suggest that Crisis Counselors evolve in their choice of words, get faster, and write more diverse messages. Researchers: Justine Zhang, Robert Filbin, Christine Morrison, Jaclyn Weiser, Cristian Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil; 2019.
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Researchers studied the relationship between crisis support-seeking behavior in young adults/adolescents and temperature in the United States. Results suggest a significant association between minimum or maximum temperatures and crisis help-seeking behaviors in urban areas. Researchers: Margaret M. Sugg, P. Grady Dixon, Jennifer D. Runkle; 2019.
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Researchers developed a set of guidelines for organizations aiming to develop a data-sharing program with academic researchers. They determined that with careful planning and appropriate resources, data sharing can advance their respective missions, benefit society, and improve lives. Researchers: Anthony R Pisani et al.; 2019.
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Researchers explored help seeking behavior in youth following the release of Netflix series 13 Reasons Why (Season 1). They found elevated search engine volume for terms indicating suicidal thoughts as well as a significant, but momentary, rise in Crisis Text Line volume. Researchers; Laura K. Thompson, Kurt Michael, Margaret M. Sugg; 2019.
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Researchers investigated the relationship between geospatial suicide clusters in the United States and emergency responses initiated by Crisis Text Line. Findings revealed a correlation between conversation volume and active rescues. Researchers: Mark E. Larsen, Michelle Torok, Kit Huckvale, Bilal Reda, Sofian Berrouiguet, Helen Christensen; 2019.
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Researchers examined help seeking behavior in adolescents. Rurality was the strongest predictor for low rates of help-seeking and elevated rates of suicide. These findings suggest that rural communities should be the target of future research, intervention, and outreach. Researchers: Laura K. Thompson, Margaret M. Sugg, Jennifer R. Runkle; 2018.
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Researchers developed a set of computational discourse analysis methods to measure how various linguistic aspects of conversations are correlated with crisis conversation outcomes. Findings suggest actionable strategies that are associated with better conservation outcomes. Researchers: Tim Althoff, Kevin Clark, Jure Leskovec; 2016.
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Researchers developed a system that provides topic modeling of conversations and graphical visualization of topic distributions. This mixed-initiative paradigm trains coherent topic and word distributions aimed at reducing Crisis Counselor cognitive overload. Researchers: Karthik Dinakar, Jackie Chen, Henry Lieberman, Rosalind W. Picard; 2015.
