EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Public health researchers in Michigan and Rhode Island are embarking on a study to seek ways to reduce suicides among recently released jail inmates.

Michigan State University announced Tuesday that Jennifer Johnson with the East Lansing school’s College of Human Medicine was awarded $6.8 million from the National Institute of Mental Health and National Institute of Justice to help examine the problem.

Johnson, a C.S. Mott endowed professor of public health, will be conducting the study with co-investigator Lauren Weinstock, associate professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University.

The four-year study known as the SPIRIT Trial, or Suicide Prevention Intervention for at-Risk Individuals in Transition, will follow 800 recently released detainees from the Genesee County Jail in Flint, Michigan, and the Department of Corrections in Cranston, Rhode Island.