954 - Preventing Suicide
Public Health On Call
The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
4.6 • 644 Ratings
🗓️ 30 September 2025
⏱️ 15 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
About this episode:
Social media and AI chatbots are changing the landscape of suicide prevention, requiring a multidisciplinary care model. In this episode: Walker Tisdale, Johns Hopkins' Director of Outreach for Suicide Prevention Initiatives, discusses how these developing technologies are changing care models and how to help loved ones who are struggling with suicidal thoughts.
Guest:
Walker R. Tisdale III, MPH, DSW, is a leading subject-matter expert and national speaker on suicide prevention, crisis intervention, health equity and the social determinants of health. He serves as the Director of Outreach for Suicide Prevention Initiatives at Johns Hopkins University.
Host:
Dr. Josh Sharfstein is distinguished professor of the practice in Health Policy and Management, a pediatrician, and former secretary of Maryland's Health Department.
Show links and related content:
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What My Daughter Told ChatGPT Before She Took Her Life—New York Times
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Behavioral Health Crisis Support Team—Johns Hopkins University
Transcript information:
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, |
| 0:05.9 | where we bring evidence, experience, and perspective to make sense of today's leading health challenges. |
| 0:16.3 | If you have questions or ideas for us, please send an email to public health question at jhhhu.edu. |
| 0:23.8 | That's public health question at jhhu.edu for future podcast episodes. |
| 0:30.5 | Hey listeners, it's Lindsay Smith Rogers. |
| 0:33.3 | September is suicide prevention month, but are the chatbots aware? Dr. Walker Tisdale |
| 0:39.6 | III is Director of Outreach for Suicide Prevention Initiatives at Johns Hopkins University Student Services. |
| 0:46.3 | He speaks to Dr. Josh Sarfstein about strategies to reduce suicides, the warning signs for suicide, |
| 0:52.8 | what people can do to help others, and how we can |
| 0:56.0 | address the potential dangers to our mental health from chatbots. Let's listen. Dr. Walker Tisdale, |
| 1:02.6 | thank you so much for joining me today in Public Health On Call. This is Suicide Prevention Month. |
| 1:07.8 | Really interested in having an expert in suicide prevention come to talk. |
| 1:12.7 | And lo and behold, one of the national experts is right here at Johns Hopkins. |
| 1:16.7 | How are you doing today? |
| 1:17.7 | I'm doing well. Thank you, Josh. I am excited to be here to talk about this topic. |
| 1:22.7 | It is very important, as you said, for Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. |
| 1:26.5 | And you're pretty new to Johns Hopkins. |
| 1:28.7 | Still very new. I'm going to claim it for a while. So I arrived here in the summer, |
| 1:33.4 | and so hit the ground running. |
| 1:35.3 | Tell me a little bit about your career and your work in suicide prevention over the last few years. |
| 1:40.0 | Absolutely. So I have had pretty quick trajectory in working with some of the most amazing professionals who are also subject matter experts in this field, starting with my time at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where I worked with colleagues around grant-funded programs around suicide prevention. I was the inaugural director of suicide prevention for the state of Georgia, |
| 2:02.2 | working for the state with this 159 counties. So pretty spread out. I think I visited 103 of them |
... |
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