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David Shaffer (April 20, 1936 – October 15, 2023) was a South African-born British-American physician and pediatrician. He was the Irving Philips Professor of Child Psychiatry in the Departments of Psychiatry and Pediatrics, at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City, now the Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. Shaffer was also the chief of pediatric psychiatry at New York–Presbyterian Hospital and chief of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, New York State Psychiatric Institute. He was the former spouse of British-American journalist Anna Wintour.
The finding of specific profiles and the almost universal presence of treatable psychiatric disorders among suicide victims suggested that case-finding would be a viable method for preventing suicide. However, one approach to case-finding, suicide-awareness educational programs, was found to offer few benefits and potentially increased risk. This stimulated the development of a screening strategy instead.Kaplan, Arline (1 March 2006). "Battling a National Killer: TeenScreen Aims To Prevent Teen Suicide". Psychiatric Times. p. 1. Ultimately, Shaffer led a team of colleagues in creating the Columbia TeenScreen. The scoring algorithm had a sensitivity of 0.75, specificity 0.83, and positive predictive value 16% with suicidal ideation as the criterion.
Other research interests included the development of diagnostic instruments. He was charged by the National Institutes of Health (NIMH) to develop a child version of the Diagnostic Interview Schedule (DIS) for use in large field studies. The NIMH DISC "is a highly structured diagnostic interview, designed to assess more than 30 psychiatric disorders occurring in children and adolescents, and can be administered by "lay" interviewers after a minimal training period." Shaffer led the development of several editions of the DISC, including the version (NIMH DISC-IV), which is based closely on DSM-IV.
David Shaffer died from respiratory failure in Mastic Beach, New York, on October 15, 2023, at the age of 87. He also had Alzheimer’s disease in his later years.
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