An Exploration of Barriers to Suicide Prevention Messaging With US Veterans

Background: Communication campaigns offer a portable intervention to effectively reach and engage target populations at risk for suicide including US veterans. Few studies have evaluated such efforts, and still fewer have examined factors that contribute to failed suicide prevention messaging. Aims: We aimed to examine characteristics of suicide prevention messages and persuasive processes that may underlie failed communicative intervention with US veterans. Method: Telephone interviews were completed with veterans ( N = 33) from June to September 2016 using a semi-structured interview guide. Interview transcripts were coded by the authors with NVivo using a constant comparison analytic strategy. Results: Several reasons emerged for why suicide prevention messaging may fail to produce intended responses among veterans. Participants identified message features (e.g., language, images, messenger) and communication strategies that may diminish campaign effects. Limitations: Findings are not generalizable, are limited to participants who used VA healthcare and were not suicidal, and are subject to several biases. Conclusion: This work provides initial insights into barriers to effective message use with veterans.

Discussion Networks, Campaign Effects, and Vote Choice

This chapter demonstrates that the dynamics of vote choice described in the previous chapter are caused by the discussion and social ties described in Chapter 2. During campaigns, discussion with disagreeing partners tends to induce preference change in voters, while discussion only with agreeing partners reinforces vote intentions, causing preference stability. The chapter illustrates this relationship at multiple levels of analysis, estimating relationships in the Brazilian and Mexican panel surveys in ways that address threats to causal inference. Quotations from the qualitative data also reveal social influence in action, showing vividly that many voters defer to their more politically knowledgeable social ties. In short, the votes cast on election day in Brazil and Mexico are socially informed. The chapter also shows that the social influences that occur during campaigns determine who wins elections. Candidates whose mid-campaign supporters encounter high rates of disagreement from social ties struggle to hold on to these voters through election day. These voters' preferences are less reinforced in conversation, so many switch to different candidates. The candidate they previously supported collapses in the polls.

Methods to measure and track population perception and support within a manual wargame

The outcomes of military campaigns depend to a large extent on the support of local and other wider population groups, so it is important to understand their perceptions. Here we briefly describe the approach used to represent support for organizations and factions in a professional wargame designed to represent military campaigns. This specific approach was developed originally using a simple marker track system that used a basic quantified set of relationships between military campaign effects and changes to the track levels. This marker track system was developed for military campaign wargames in the UK as a means to portray support or dissent in population groups relevant to the operations, but there was originally no mechanism to drive changes other than by expert judgment. Our improved approach continues the use of marker tracks but attempts to develop a more defensible method based on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs for linking events to changes and levels on the tracks. We conducted experiments to quantify the relative importance of each element in Maslow’s hierarchy. We then continued by conducting a further experiment to identify the impact of a set of effects seen in a wargame against the Maslow elements. This has led to a set of quantified scores that may be used to drive the modifications to the marker tracks when wargame events occur. These scores are based on our initial experiments and may be updated for a specific application, perhaps for a specific setting or location in the world. The revised or enhanced approach aims to produce a transparent solution that can be understood by a military or security analyst, thus facilitating refinement, updating, and change.

Campaign Effects and the Elusive Swing Voter in Modern Machine Politics

Are vote-choice buying attempts successful? Much research across the social sciences argues that political machines expertly turn citizens into clients, undermining core aspects of democracy. Using insights from behavioral theories of vote choice, I argue that standard partisan campaigns can diminish vote-choice buying’s efficiency. Machines face a targeting problem: Local brokers identify good clients using long-term markers but then campaigns shift many citizens’ vote-relevant attitudes in ways that brokers cannot detect, leading to targeting errors. Vote-choice buying remains effective on recipients who are unmoved by the campaigns, but this group is small where campaigns are influential. Tests using panel surveys from Mexico’s 2000 and 2012 elections measure vote-buying attempts with direct questions and list experiments, employ various measures of campaign influence, and rely on new and existing estimation techniques. The findings yield a more optimistic view of the quality of elections in new democracies than current literature implies.