Marcello Ferrada-Noli

Marcello Vittorio Ferrada-Noli
Born	25 July 1943
Residence	Italy
Citizenship	Sweden

Marcello Vittorio Ferrada-Noli is a Swedish medicine doktor and Professor Emeritus of Public Health Sciences / Epidemiology. He was formerly Professor in Epidemiology and in International Health at the University of Gävle, and Head of the Research group of International and Cross-cultural Injury Epidemiology at the Karolinska Institutet.

He earned his PhD in Psychiatry at the Karolinska Institutet and was thereafter Research Fellow and Lecturer in Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. During his stay at Harvard he published most of the research discoveries below, judged "pioneer contribution to epidemiological research" (Academic awards).

Biography

Marcello Ferrada-Noli was born in Chile 25 July 1943, in family of Italian ancestry rooted in Genoa (Liguria), descendants of nobleman and explorer António de Noli. Father company owner and former officer in the Carabineers and elite equestrian, and mother university professor and artist. He had originally academic education in Philosophy, became Full Professor of Psychology at age 27 (University of Chile, Arica, 1970) and he was Full Professor at the University of Concepción at the time of Augusto Pinochet's 1973 Chilean coup d'état.

Marcello Ferrada-Noli had a left-liberal ideological background (his elder brother, a lawyer, had been member of the Liberal Party) when, at age 22, became one founder of MIR, the Movement of the Revolutionary Left. MIR was a Chilean political party and former left-wing guerrilla organization (founded on October 12, 1965) notorious in the resistance on the Pinochet Dictatorship. Together with his old-time friend from school years Miguel Enríquez (died in combat 1975) and Marco A. Enríquez, Ferrada-Noli was an author of the Political-military Theses of MIR - known also as La Tesis Insurreccional - the first document of MIR approved in its foundation congress of 1965.^[1][2][3] He represented there left-libertarian standpoints.

During the government of the Christian Democratic Party, President Eduardo Frei declared MIR out of the law and Marcello Ferrada-Noli posted in the nation-wide published wanted-list of thirteen fugitive MIR leaders,^[4] together with his friends Miguel Enríquez, Bautista van Schouwen, and others. Later captured in August 1969 ^[5] Ferrada-Noli was acquitted without trial after been kept in isolation cell ^[6] at Concepción prison (La Cárcel). Altogether he had been captured or imprisoned at seven occasions for his political activities in Chile during his time in the MIR.

In the aftermath of the resistance to the military coup of 1973 Marcello Ferrada-Noli was captured in Concepción and taken first to the Stadium and later became imprisoned in Quiriquina Island Prisoners Camp. After his liberation he could stay as Geneva Convention exiled in Sweden with help from Amnesty International (Sweden) prominent lawyer Hans Göran Franck. In 1974 he was member of the Russell Tribunal Scientific Secretariat in Rome,^[7] which investigated human rights violations in Chile and Latin America. Ferrada-Noli remained in operative activities of MIR's Comité Exterior until 1977, latest assigned as head of counter-intelligence operations of MIR in Northern Europe at the times of Pinochet Operación Cóndor. He left MIR definitely in 1977 after unsolved ideological confrontations with the new MIR-leadership which advocated a broad political coalition comprising the Communist Party and the Christian Democratic Party (PDC), which Ferrada-Noli opposed.

In 1998, being Professor at the University of Tromso in Norway, Ferrada-Noli publicly demanded the extradition of Pinochet, at the time in London, to stand trial in Scandinavia for the disappearance under captivity of his friends Bautista van Schouwen and Edgardo Enríquez.^[8]

Research

Ferrada-Noli found several indicators (psychiatric and epidemiological markers) of heightened suicidal behaviour in cross-cultural settings.^[9] One was the high associations discovered 1998 between PTSD diagnose and history of injury-related severe trauma, such us torture under captivity, in the mechanism of suicide methods.^[10][11] Other findings referred to heightened prevalence of suicidal behaviour associated to PTSD psychiatric co-morbidity,^[12][13] particularly late-onset PTSD (2004).^[14] He had previously reported (1996) PTSD clinical symptoms being more determinant of suicidal behaviour than cultural differences among traumatised refugees.^[15]

Another discovery was the over-representation of immigrants in the epidemiology of suicide in Sweden. The phenomenon was first reported by Ferrada-Noli in 1990 as statistical tendency,^[16] and later, in 1994, by establishing high significant statistical over-representations which demonstrated that immigrant status is a risk factor for suicidal deaths in Sweden.^[17][18] In a nation-wide study of 1996 he reported the Relative risk estimate for immigrant suicides in Sweden as a whole (1.5 more times than for a native Swede).^[19][20] Being foreign-born immigrants fourteen percent of the Swedish population, the finding had also a political relevance and called for reforms. This was heightened when in a later investigation (1997) Ferrada-Noli et al. demonstrated that, compared with native Swedes, less immigrants who have died of suicide have sought help for their suicidal crisis; and that among those immigrants that did seek help at psychiatric emergency services, significantly less were admitted for further treatment, compared with native Swedes.^[21]

Further, he is credited for several pioneer findings on the negative impact of poverty and unfavourable socioeconomic indicators in the incidence of suicide. This research publications series included the empirically based rebuttal in 1997 of the socioeconomic hypothesis of suicide incidence (Émile Durkheim, 1897) and which had prevailed during one hundred years.^{[22][23][24][25][26][27]}

Ferrada-Noli's conclusions on the negative correlation poverty-suicide in Sweden were at first debated by David Lester, the eminent suicide researcher and a follower in this regard of the Durkheim School.^[28] However, a Swedish study conducted over a decade after at Stockholm University by Sara Magnusson and Ilka Mäkinen ^[29] and which used nation-wide epidemiological data, confirmed the early findings of Ferrada-Noli.

He is also credited for the identification of a new diagnostic category among suicidal behaviours (Metasuicide, referring to violent deaths in which self-inflicted lethal intent is deliberately concealed).^[18]

Academic awards

On June 30, 2005, Marcello Ferrada-Noli received in Cuba the academic distinction Profesor Invitado of the Instituto Superior de Ciencias Médicas de La Habana, motivated "for his dedication and commitment to the betterment of human life" and among other, “For his pioneer contribution to epidemiological research, in special his international studies on the phenomenon of suicide among immigrants and refugees". In the Elogio académico accompanying the diploma were also listed his principal research findings. March 14, 2006, by the Medical Faculty of the University of Chile, ad-honorem appointment Profesor Agregado at the School of Public Health "in merit to the collaboration that you given to educational programs at the medical school". Received the academic award Mención al Mérito by the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León for among other his book Teoría y Método de la Concientización published in Mexico 1972. Finally, upon retirement, he received at the Swedish University of Gävle the "title of distinction" Professor Emeritus of Public Health Sciences "in value of Meritorious academic services" (1 July 2007).

Marcello Ferrada-Noli retired from academic activities 2008. His last input to international and cross-cultural psychiatric epidemiology was as contributor author in the Oxford Textbook of Suicidology.^[30] At present he is a permanent resident of Italy and President of the Antonio de Noli Academic Society.

References and Footnotes

1. ^ Pedro Alfonso Valdés Navarro (2008) "Elementos teóricos en la formación y desarrollo del MIR durante el periodo 1965-1970". Universidad de Valparaíso, Chile. Tesis de grado. Pages 1-121 [1]
2. ^ Jose Leonel Calderón López (2009) "La política del Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR) durante los dos primeros años de la Dictadura militar". University of Santiago. Tesis de grado. Pages 1-292 [2]
3. ^ Christopher Minster (2009) Chile's MIR: The Revolutionary Left Movement. Urban Guerrillas Declare War on the Pinochet Dictatorship. About.com: Latin American History [3]
4. ^ "A Través de la Historia Terrorista del Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR)". Article in Diario "El Mercurio", Santiago, 25-98-1973. Excerpt: "Agosto 4 (1969). Cerca de Concepción fue detenido el profesor de Filosofía y Miembro del Consejo Superior de la Universidad penquista Marcello Ferrada Noli. Se trata de uno de los 13 miristas prófugos de la justicia contra los que existía orden de detención en el proceso por actividades subversivas del MIR"
5. ^ "Ferrada Noli, uno de los más destacados cerebros del MIR universitario, tenía orden de detención cursada por el ministro Broghamer desde Julio pasado, pero se las había ingeniado para eludir la acción de la policía"". Excerpt, artículo en Diario "La Patria", Concepción 3-08-1969
6. ^ "Ferrada Incomunicado". Article in Diario "Noticias de la Tarde", Concepción 5-08-1969
7. ^ The Scientific Secretariat of the Russell Tribunal II in Rome was presided by Linda Bimbi and had also among its members Gabriel García Márquez and Vladimir Dedijer.
8. ^ a) Associated Press, November 1, 1998. "Chilean in Norway files against Pinochet". OSLO, Norway, Nov. 1 (AP). b), NTB/Dagblad, "Pinochet politianmeldt i Norge", Oslo, 1 Nov 1998 [4]
9. ^ The findings enabled improvements of diagnostic instruments in clinical assessments of suicide risk, and help in identifying populations at risk for dying of suicide. Research results of Ferrada-Noli have been reported in the main Swedish newspapers and TV networks, and referred in encyclopaedic or health-policy documents of the Swedish National Institute of Public Health [5][6] and the Swedish Parliament [7]
10. ^ Ferrada-Noli M, Asberg M, Ormstad K (January 1998). "Suicidal behavior after severe trauma. Part 2: The association between methods of torture and of suicidal ideation in posttraumatic stress disorder". Journal of Traumatic Stress 11 (1): 113–24. doi:10.1023/A:1024413301064. PMID 9479680. 
11. ^ Physicians for Human Rights, an international organization that promotes health by protecting human rights , headquartered in Cambridge, Mass., reproduced one of the above findings in the publication Leave no marks. It refers to the high statistical association between the specific torture methods inflicted to prisoners under interrogation and the specific suicide methods the torture survivors had later preferred, e.g. blunt force to the head and body was related to jumping from heights or in front of trains; torture involving water (submarino), with drowning; sharp force torture, with self-inflicted stabbing or cutting; etc. [8]
12. ^ Ferrada-Noli M, Asberg M, Ormstad K, Lundin T, Sundbom E (January 1998). "Suicidal behavior after severe trauma. Part 1: PTSD diagnoses, psychiatric comorbidity, and assessments of suicidal behavior". Journal of Traumatic Stress 11 (1): 103–12. doi:10.1023/A:1024461216994. PMID 9479679. 
13. ^ Clinical Psychology Review published in 2009 a major independent review of the research on PTSD and suicidal behaviour [Panagioti M, Gooding P, Tarrier N (August 2009). "Post-traumatic stress disorder and suicidal behavior: A narrative review". Clinical Psychology Review 29 (6): 471–82. doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2009.05.001. PMID 19539412. ], among other the discoveries above by Ferrada-Noli and his co-workers. The review stated that the authors "demonstrated that among refugees with PTSD, major depression was not substantially associated with heightened levels of suicidal behavior", meaning that the path to severe suicide attempts in PTSD victims would not be mediated by depression - as widely concluded elsewhere - but linked directly to PTSD
14. ^ Ferrada-Noli M (October 2001). ["Traumatic stress and suicidal behavior of refugees--epidemiological findings"] [Article in Swedish] . [Swedish Medical Journal] Lakartidningen. 98(44):4888-90. PMID 11729803 [9]
15. ^ Ferrada-Noli, Marcello; Sundbom, Elisabet (1996). "Cultural bias in suicidal behaviour among refugees with post-traumatic stress disorder". Nordic Journal of Psychiatry 50 (3): 185. doi:10.3109/08039489609081407. 
16. ^ Ferrada-Noli M (1990) The study of risk factors in psychological autopsies. Paper presented at the 3rd European Symposium on Suicidal Behaviour and Risk Factors, Bologna, Italy
17. ^ Ferrada-Noli M (1994). Psychiatric and Forensic Findings in Definite and Undetermined Suicides. An epidemiological and cross-cultural study. Thesis, Lic. Medical Sciences in Psychiatry. Dept Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet
18. ^ ^{a b} Ferrada-Noli M, Asberg M, Ormstad K, Nordström P (February 1995). "Definite and undetermined forensic diagnoses of suicide among immigrants in Sweden". Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica 91 (2): 130–5. doi:10.1111/j.1600-0447.1995.tb09753.x. PMID 7778471. 
19. ^ Marcello Ferrada-Noli, Dept Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet (1996). Post-traumatic stress disorder and suicidal behaviour in immigrants to Sweden. PhD dissertation. Abstract [10]
20. ^ Ferrada-Noli M (August 1997). "A cross-cultural breakdown of Swedish suicide". Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica 96 (2): 108–16. doi:10.1111/j.1600-0447.1997.tb09914.x. PMID 9272194. 
21. ^ Ferrada-Noli, Marcello; Åsberg, Marie; Ormstad, Kari (1996). "Psychiatric care and transcultural factors in suicide incidence". Nordic Journal of Psychiatry 50: 21. doi:10.3109/08039489609081384. 
22. ^ Émile Durkheim (1897). Suicide, Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press. 1951. Durkheim postulated that poverty is a "shield" against suicide. He based his assumption mainly in comparisons of the suicide incidence between poor and rich countries. Ferrada-Noli rebutted with several studies comparing socio-economic indicators and the suicide incidence between poor and rich regions (at county and municipality level within the country), and also comparisons of the individual income of suicide victims living in poor, respective rich regions. He concluded instead that poverty is a negative factor in the incidence of suicide.
23. ^ Ferrada-Noli M (December 1996). "Social psychological vs socioeconomic hypotheses on the epidemiology of suicide: an empirical study". Psychological Reports 79 (3 Pt 1): 707–10. doi:10.2466/pr0.1996.79.3.707. PMID 8969074. 
24. ^ Ferrada-Noli M (February 1997). "Social psychological indicators associated with the suicide rate: replying to the socioeconomic hypothesis". Psychological Reports 80 (1): 315–22. doi:10.2466/PR0.80.1.315-322. PMID 9122344. 
25. ^ Ferrada-Noli M, Asberg M (August 1997). "Psychiatric health, ethnicity and socioeconomic factors among suicides in Stockholm". Psychological Reports 81 (1): 323–32. doi:10.2466/PR0.81.5.323-332. PMID 9293223. Fulltext pdf [11]
26. ^ Ferrada-Noli M (October 1997). "Health and socioeconomic indicators in psychiatric catchment areas with divergent suicide rates". Psychological Reports 81 (2): 611–9. doi:10.2466/PR0.81.6.611-619. PMID 9354114. 
27. ^ Ferrada-Noli M (August 1997). "Social psychological variables in populations contrasted by income and suicide rate: Durkheim revisited". Psychological Reports 81 (1): 307–16. doi:10.2466/PR0.81.5.307-316. PMID 9293220.  Fulltext pdf [12]
28. ^ Lester D, Savlid AC S, Mäkinen IH (1997). "Suicide and wealth in Sweden: comment on Ferrada-Noli". Psychological Reports 80 (1 Pt 1): 34. doi:10.2466/PR0.80.1.34-34. 
29. ^ Magnusson S, Mäkinen IH (2010). "Sweden: Income and Suicide". Psychological Reports 107 (1 Pt 1): 157–162. doi:10.2466/02.12.13.17.PR0.107.4.157-162. 
30. ^ Oxford Textbook of Suicidology and Suicide Prevention. Editors Wasserman D. & Wasserman C. Oxford University Press (2009). Pages 1-912. [13]

External links

• Arte de Noli. Paintings by Marcello Ferrada-Noli
• Professors blogg
• De Noli. The Italian Bond
• Lotta Continua. Marcello Ferrada-Noli's homepage
• Physicians for Human Rights: Leave No Marks
• // Former Research group International and Cross-cultural Injury Epidemiology at Karolinska Inst 2004-2008

Persondata
Name	Ferrada-Noli, Marcello
Alternative names	Ferrada de Noli, Marcello
Short description
Date of birth	25 July 1943
Place of birth
Date of death
Place of death