Despite the increased interest and pursuit of research into self-harm, its etiology and epidemiology, many aspects of self-harm remain relatively poorly understood. As such, future research is clearly needed to better understand and respond to the growing need of youth who experience self-harm and suicidal behaviors. Previous priorities have been outlined for this field of research [3]. However, one of the key barriers to progress in this field is the scarcity of available data sources that have included measures of non-suicidal self-injury or self-harm. A recommendation for future data collections is to incorporate measures of self-harm, particularly among adolescents and young adults, so that the prevalence and epidemiology of self-harm can be studied across a range of populations and settings. Finally, while self-harm is clearly a complex and multi-faceted problem [1], efforts that seek to understand this issue better and that find ways to develop prevention and intervention strategies are sorely needed.
