Take the lead in adolescent suicide prevention, professionals tell mental health administrators.

David Shaffer, M.D., director of Columbia University's Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, says that using broad educational measures to prevent adolescent suicide is ineffective. He advocates more direct methods, such as identifying individuals at high risk and targeting them for specific interventions.

Especially susceptible to suicide, Shaffer says, are 11th- and 12th-grade boys who have had significant problems with depression and alcohol. "If I were an administrator with limited funds I'd put them toward finding those kids," says Shaffer.

Shaffer's remarks come in response to a recent New York Senate report that concluded that the state largely …