Michiko Ueda-Ballmer

• 2025 Fall
  • PAI 724 Data Driven Decision Making
  • PAI 300 Selected Topics - Mental Health Policy
• 2025 Spring
  • PSY 375 Cross-Cultural Psychology
  • PAI 774 Public Policy and Program Evaluation
• 2024 Fall
  • PAI 724 Data Driven Decision Making
  • PAI 300 Selected Topics - Mental Health Policy
• 2024 Summer
  • PAI 670 Experience Credit

Michiko Ueda-Ballmer is an associate professor in the Public Administration and International Affairs Department at the Maxwell School and is a senior research associate in the Center for Policy Research. Her research interests include social determinants of health, suicide prevention, mental health policy, public health and computational social science.

In her current projects, she examines the psychological conditions of distressed individuals through the analysis of crisis chat service data and social media using natural language processing; studies the consequences and determinants of loneliness and social isolation; investigates the impact of media (both traditional and social media) on suicide deaths and mental health; conducts online randomized controlled trials in diverse cultural settings to promote help-seeking behavior among distressed individuals; explores the effects of COVID-19 and food insecurity on mental health and suicide; measures the implicit level of loneliness in Japan and the United States using the IAT (Implicit Association Test); and examines the well-being of traditionally underrepresented groups in international STEM communities.

"Caregiver Suicide and Homicide-Suicide: Investigating the Role of Policy and Place-Contexts on Mortality", Sponsored by National Institute on Aging.

"Explorations: Syracuse University Physics Emerging Research Technologies Summer High school Internship Program (SUPER-Tech SHIP)", Sponsored by National Science Foundation.

"Closing the Racial Wealth Gap Thought Leadership Partnership with Syracuse University's Lender Center", Sponsored by MetLife Foundation.

"Suicide Risk among Care Recipients during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Role of Long-Term Care Disruptions and Perceived Burdensomeness", Sponsored by Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs; Maxwell’s COVID-19 Policy Impacts Project.

• Journal Articles
  • Ueda, M., "Suicide deaths among informal caregivers in an aging society: Insights from 18 years of national data in Japan." Public Health, 2025.
  • Liu, Y., Beauparlant, E. .., Ueda, M. and Yu, Q., "Psychological Well‐Being and Distress Among College Students: The Mediating Role of Resilience as a Dynamic Process." Journal of Counseling & Development, 2025.
  • Ueda, M., Heflin, C. M., Liu, Y., Yu, Q. and Ramanathan, S., "Understanding Factors Associated with 911 and 988 Use in Mental Health Crises." Community Mental Health Journal, 2025.
  • Xian, S., Ramanathan, S., Stephen , . .. and Ueda, M., "Geriatric Suicide: Understanding Risk Factors and Prevention Strategies Using a Socioecological Model." Journal of Ageing and Longevity, 2025.
  • Ramanathan, S., De La Lianne Cruz, Ueda, M. and Carruthers, J., "Five‐Year Implementation of Zero Suicide: Lessons Learnt From an Academic Health System." Psychiatric Research and Clinical Practice, 2025.
  • Okuyama, T., Miyamoto, Y., Ito, A., Akaishi, R. and Ueda, M., "Lay People’s Views on Mobility: Who Perceives Mobility to be Undesirable, and Why?." Hitotsubashi Bulletin of Social Sciences, 2025.
  • Pirkis, J., Bantjes, J., Gould, M., Niederkrotenthaler, T., Robinson, J., Sinyor, M., Ueda, M. and Hawton, K., "Public health measures related to the transmissibility of suicide." The Lancet Public Health, 2024.
  • Ueda, M., Watanabe, K. and Sueki, H., "Emotional Distress During COVID-19 by Mental Health Conditions and Economic Vulnerability: Retrospective Analysis of Survey-Linked Twitter Data with a Semisupervised Machine Learning Algorithm." Journal of Medical Internet Research, 2023.
  • Sinyor, M., Hawton, K., Appleby, L., Armstrong, G., Ueda, M., Gunnell, D., Kapur, N., Chang, S. S., Arensman, E., O'Conner, R. C., John, A., Knipe, D., Phillips, M. R., Pirkis, J., Dandona, R., Chan, L. F., Bantjes, J., Borges, G., McKeon, R. and Niederkrotenthaler, T., "The coming global economic downturn and suicide: A call to action." Nature Mental Health, 2023.
  • Matsubayashi, T., Ishikawa, Y. and Ueda-Ballmer, M., "Economic Crisis and Mental Health during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Japan." Journal of Affective Disorders, 2022.
  • Matsubayashi, T., Ueda-Ballmer, M., "Is suicide underreported? Evidence from Japan." Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 2022.
  • Stickley, A., Ueda-Ballmer, M., "Loneliness in Japan during the COVID-19 pandemic: prevalence, correlates and association with mental health." Psychiatry Research, 2022.
  • Badman, R. P., Nordström, R., Ueda-Ballmer, M. and Akaishi, R., "Perceptions of social rigidity predict loneliness across the Japanese population." Scientific Reports, 2022.
  • Sueki, H., Ueda-Ballmer, M., "Pre-pandemic suicidal ideation and COVID-19 preventive behavior: a prospective cohort study." Psychology, Health & Medicine, 2022.
  • Matsubayashi, T., Nordström, R. and Ueda-Ballmer, M., "Suicide and mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan." Journal of Public Health, 2022.
  • Sinyor, M., Knipe, D., Borges, G., Ueda-Ballmer, M., Pirkis, J., Phillips, M. R. and Gunnell, D., "Suicide Risk and Prevention During the COVID-19 Pandemic: One Year On." Archives of Suicide Research, 2022.
  • Pirkis, J., Gunnell, D., Shin, S., Del Pozo-Banos, M., Arya, V., Aguilar, P. A., Appleby, L., Arafat, S. M., Arensman, E., Ayuso-Mateos, J. L., Balhara, Y. P., Bantjes, J., Baran, A., Behera, C., Bertolote, J., Borges, G., Bray, M., Brečić, P., Caine, E., Calati, R., Carli, V., Castelpietra, G., Chang, L. F., Chang, S. S., Colcherster, D., Coss-Guzmán, M., Crompton, D., Ćurković, M., Dandona, R., De Jaegere, E., De Leo, D., Deisenhammer, E. A., Dwyer, J., Erlangsen, A., Faust, J. S., Fornaro, M., Fortune, S., Garrett, A., Gentile, G., Gerstner, R., Gilissen, R., Gould, M., Gupta, S. K., Hawton, K., Holz, H., Kamenshcikov, I., Kanpur, N., Kasal, A., Khan, M., Kirtley, O. J., Knipe, D., Kõlves, K., Kölzer, S. C., Krivda, H., Leske, S., Madeddu, F., Marshall, A., Memon, A., Mittendorfer-Rutz, E., Nestadt, P., Neznanov, N., Niederkrotenhaler, T., Nielsen, E., Nordentoft, M., Oberlerchner, H., O'Connor, R. C., Papsdorf, R., Partonen, T., Phillpis, M. R., Platt, S., Portzky, G., Psota, G., Qin, P., Radeloff, D., Reif, A., Reif-Leonhard, C., Rezaeian, M., Román-Vázquez, N., Roskar, S., Rozanov, V., Sara, G., Scavacini, K., Schneider, B., Semenova, N., Sinyor, M., Tambuzzi, S., Townsend, E., Ueda-Ballmer, M., Wasserman, D., Webb, R. T., Winkler, P., Yip, P. S., Zalsman, G., Zoja, R., John, A. and Spittal, M. J., "Suicide numbers during the first 9-15 months of the COVID-19 pandemic compared with pre-existing trends: An interrupted time series analysis in 33 countries." eClinicalMedicine, 2022.
  • Veszteg, R., Yamakawa, K., Matsubayashi, T. and Ueda-Ballmer, M., "Acute stress does not affect economic behavior in the experimental laboratory." PLoS ONE, 2021.
  • Matsubayashi, T., Ueda-Ballmer, M., "Economic crisis and suicide during the COVID-19." Journal for the Japanese Society for Social Psychiatry, 2021.
  • Kawamoto, T., Aoki, T. and Ueda-Ballmer, M., "Graph-based open-ended survey on concerns related to COVID-19." PLoS ONE, 2021.
  • Jiang, W., Stickley, A. and Ueda-Ballmer, M., "Green space and suicide mortality in Japan: An ecological study." Social Science & Medicine, 2021.
  • Baran, A., Gerstner, R., Ueda-Ballmer, M. and Gmitrowicz, A., "Implementing real-time data suicide surveillance systems." Crisis, 2021.
  • Sueki, H., Ueda-Ballmer, M., "Short-term effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on suicidal ideation: A prospective cohort study." Crisis, 2021.
  • Ueda-Ballmer, M., "Suicide during the COVID-19 pandemic: Current status and prevention strategies." Japanese Journal of Clinical Psychology, 2021.
  • Pirkis, J., John, A., Shin, S., DelPozo Banos, M., Arya, V., Aguilar, P. A., Appleby, L., Arensman, E., Bantjes, J., Baran, A., Bertolote, J. M., Borges, G., Brečić, P., Caine, E., Castelpietra, G., Chang, S. S., Colchester, D., Crompton, D., Curkovic, M., Deisenhammer, E. A., Du, C., Dwyer, J., Erlangsen, A., Faust, J., Fortune, S., Garrett, A., George, D., Gerstner, R., Gilissen, R., Gould, M., Hawton, K., Holland, K., Kanter, J., Kanpur, N., Khan, M., Kirtley, O. J., Knipe, D., Kolves, K., Leske, S., Marahatta, K., Mittendorfer-Rutz, E., Neznanov, N., Niederkrotenthaler, T., Nielsen, E., Nordentoft, M., Oberlerchner, H., O'Connor, R. C., Osafo, J., Pearson, M., Phillips, M. R., Platt, S., Plener, P. L., George, P., Qin, P., Radeloff, D., Rados, C., Reif, A., Reif-Leonhard, C., Rozanov, V., Schlang, C., Schneider, B., Semenova, N., Sinyor, M., Townsend, E., Ueda-Ballmer, M., Vijayakumar, L., Weerasinghe, M., Zalsman, G., Gunnell, D. and Spittal, M. J., "Suicide trends in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic: Interrupted time series analysis of preliminary data from 21 countries." Lancet Psychiatry, 2021.
  • O'Shea, B. A., Ueda-Ballmer, M., "Who is more likely to ignore experts' advice related to COVID-19?." Preventive Medicine Reports, 2021.
• Discussion Papers
  • Ueda-Ballmer, M., "Who is most affected by Media Reporting of Suicide?: Evidence from Japan." Government of Japan, 2015.
  • Kawahara, K., Ueda-Ballmer, M., "Childbearing and Subjective Well-being in Japan." Government of Japan, 2013.
• Technical Reports
  • Ueda, M., Is AI Replacing Human Mental Health Professionals?. Lerner Center for Public Health Promotion and Population Health, Syracuse University, 2025.
  • Ueda, M., Heflin, C. M., Liu, Y., Yu, Q. and Ramanathan, S., Why Aren’t More People Calling 988 for Mental Health Crises?. Center for Policy Research, Syracuse University, 2025.

Ueda, M., Heflin, C. M., 47th Annual Fall Research Conference, Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management (APPAM), "Understanding Administrative Burdens and Experiences of Social Program Beneficiaries and Applicants Using Posts on Reddit" (November, 2025 - November, 2025)

LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaboration Meeting , "Well-being of the Members of the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaboration" (March 26, 2025)

LXXIX Congreso de la Sociedad de Neurología, Psiquiatría y Neurocirugía de Chile, "Social Determinants of Suicide" (December 6, 2024)

CNY Youth Mental Summit, "Understanding and Preventing Youth Suicide: Trends, Causes, and Interventions" (October 25, 2024)

Symposium on Suicide Prevention: Sonder -- Unravelling Complexities of Suicide, Samaritans of Singapore, "Suicide and Suicide Prevention in Asia: Opportunities and Challenges" (August 26, 2024)

Ueda-Ballmer, M., Liu, Y., Yu, Q., Association for Psychological Society 2024 Annual Convention, Association for Psychological Society, "Impact of Resilience, Peer Support, and Physical Well-being on Loneliness and Flourishing among American College Students" (May 24, 2024)

Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre Department of Psychiatry, "Circumstances preceding suicide and homicide-suicide deaths in the United States" (November, 2023)

Canada's 3rd Forum on Media and Suicide, "Media and Suicide in other parts of the world" (November, 2023)

International Associate for Suicide Prevention, "Understanding the Werther effect using crisis chat service text data " (September, 2023)

International Association for Suicide Prevention 10th Asia Pacific Conference, International Association for Suicide Prevention, "Female suicides during the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan" (May, 2022)

57th National Congress Psychiatric Association of Turkey (October, 2021)

World Congress of the International Association for Suicide Prevention, International Association for Suicide Prevention, "Tracking suicide deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic: Real-time suicide data in Japan" (September, 2021)

World Congress of the International Association for Suicide Prevention, International Association for Suicide Prevention, "“Social media and suicide prevention: a panel discussion" (September, 2021)

Japanisch-Deutsches Zentrum Berlin (June, 2021)

Stockholm Explorative Talks: Growing up during a pandemic (June, 2021)

Daiwa Anglo-Japan Foundation (May, 2021)

Ueda-Ballmer, M., Kawamoro, T., Aoki, T., Annual Meeting of the Physical Society of Japan, Physical Society of Japan, "Graph-based open-ended survey on concerns related to COVID-19" (March, 2021)

Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan (February, 2021)

Birkhead-Burkhead Award for Teaching Excellence, Department of Public Administration and International Affairs, Syracuse University (2024 - 2028)