Project ELLIPSE (E-LifeLong Learning in Prevention of Suicide in Europe) was developed in response to need for preventive suicide programs. It was noticed that it is important for academic teachers and students, especially those who teach and study in the fields of medicine, nursing, psychology, sociology or those related to the media. The goal is creating an e-learning platform for students and teachers on suicide prevention along with a textbook and a free self-help application. For this purpose the milestone was the conducting of the focus group interviews in Poland. Participants were recruited from the above mentioned groups (students and professionals). The objectives of this part of the project were among others: raising awareness of the problem of suicide and prevention, giving good examples on suicide prevention in working life, preparation of a program proposal for e-learning content. Students interest in the problems of suicidology was high and they comes optimistic to the idea of prevention, they want to know especially about how to help somebody, how to talk and not to harm people and something more in their future profession. Only theoretical approach will be not enough for them, the rules of how to NOT react, will not be interesting because they know something about it. They showed a knowledge of basic concepts, extensive and multi-context knowledge of causes and warning signals and great understanding for suicides of all ages. However, they themselves were uncertain how to help such a person, and showed poor recognition of institutional help.

From 1949 to 1962, residents of several villages in Kazakhstan received substantial doses of radiation to the thyroid gland resulting from nuclear tests conducted at the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site. The primary source of radiation was internal from an intake of radioactive iodine by consumption of contaminated dairy products. A previous research study of childhood exposure and thyroid disease in this region gathered limited data on study participants’ dairy intake at the time of the fallout for the purpose of estimating past radiation doses. As many participants were too young at the time of the nuclear tests to recall dietary consumption and existing sources of archival data are limited, it was necessary to interview parents and other village residents who cared for children during this time – older adults ranging in age from 75 to 90 years. Results from 11 focus group interviews conducted in 2007 with 82 women from 4 villages in Kazakhstan yielded group-level estimates of age-, gender-, ethnicity- and village-specific dairy consumption patterns in rural Kazakhstan during the 1950s. Children typically consumed cow’s milk with limited consumption of mare, goat and sheep milk; and consumed dairy products such as sour milk (airan), soft cottage cheese (tvorog) and fermented mare milk (koumiss) with the greatest amounts of koumiss reported at ages 15–21 years. The consumption patterns differed by age, and between Kazakh and Russian children, which should lead to different estimates of radiation exposure to the thyroid. This study showed the utility of focus groups to obtain quantitative estimates for dietary intake in the distant past.