Integration of community-engaged research technology and methods to guide tobacco regulatory science in rural communities.

Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) refers to deliberate, repeated harm to one’s own body without suicidal intent (). It frequently co-occurs with psychiatric conditions such as eating disorders, bipolar disorder, and borderline personality disorder (), increases the risk of future suicide attempts (), and is listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) as a “condition requiring further study” (). Recent international and Chinese evidence underscores how pressing this issue has become. A 2022 systematic review and meta-analysis showed that self-injurious thoughts and behaviours in children are far more prevalent than previously assumed and are robustly linked to psychiatric and family-context correlates (). Within the Chinese context, a meta-analysis of 59 studies ( = 192,546 adolescents) reported a pooled NSSI prevalence of 22.5%, with depressive symptoms, negative life events and impulsive tendencies among the strongest correlates (). These figures position NSSI as a major public health concern in Chinese adolescents and motivate a closer examination of how dispositional, self-regulatory, and family-environmental factors jointly shape its occurrence. NSSI is especially common and clinically significant during adolescence. International estimates place its prevalence at around 17% (), and a pooled estimate among Chinese middle-school students is approximately 22.4% (), figures that converge with the meta-analytic evidence cited above. NSSI typically first emerges in early adolescence (), at around 12 to 14 years of age (, ); episodes last on average about 2 years () and tend to peak in late adolescence and early adulthood before gradually declining (). Late adolescence is therefore a critical window for understanding why some young people develop NSSI while others do not.