Prevention Efforts
2024 National Strategy for Suicide Prevention
"Like most public health problems, suicide is preventable. While progress will continue to be made into the future, evidence for numerous programs, practices, and policies currently exists, and many programs are ready to be implemented now."
Preventing Suicide: A Technical Package of Policy, Programs and Practices, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2017.
Working with Our Communities and Advocacy
The CDC has identified a set of evidence-based approaches that can address the risk and protective factors of suicide. These approaches include programmatic and public policy efforts.
- Strengthen economic supports — Strengthen household financial security, Housing stabilization policies
- Strengthen access and delivery of suicide care — Coverage of mental health conditions in health insurance policies, Reduce provider shortages in underserved areas, Safer suicide care through systems change
- Create protective environments — Reduce access to lethal means among persons at risk of suicide, Community-based policies to reduce excessive alcohol use
- Promote connectedness — Peer norm programs, Community-engagement activities
- Teach coping and problem solving skills — Social-emotional learning programs, Parenting skill and family relationship programs
- Identify and support people at risk — Gatekeeper training, Crisis intervention, Treatment for people at risk of suicide
- Lessen harms and prevent future risk — Safe reporting and messaging about suicide