At a glance
- CDC’s Suicide Prevention Resource for Action provides evidence-based strategies to help communities prevent suicide, support people at risk, strengthen protective factors, and reduce harms through coordinated, multisector prevention efforts.
Overview
CDC's vision of "no lives lost to suicide" relies on implementing a comprehensive public health approach to prevention. This approach:
- Uses data to guide decision-making,
- Implements and evaluates evidence-based prevention strategies that strengthen resilience and improve well-being,
- Helps people in crisis get needed services and support, and
- Fosters multisector partnerships through strong leadership and collaboration.
The Suicide Prevention Resource for Action represents a selection of strategies based on the best available evidence to help communities focus on activities with the greatest potential to prevent suicide. The resource includes strategies to prevent suicide risk and reduce immediate and long-term harms of suicidal behavior for individuals, families, communities, and society.
Prevention strategies
Below are the evidence-based strategies to achieve the goal of preventing suicide. With each strategy, example approaches include specific ways to advance the strategy. The policies, programs, and practices included have evidence of impact on suicide, suicide attempts, or risk and protective factors.
Providing economic support may reduce stress, anxiety, and the potential for a crisis, thereby preventing risk of suicide. Example approaches include:
- Improve household financial security
- Stabilize housing
Example policies, programs, and practices include:
Creating protective environments can reduce suicide and suicide attempts by increasing the time and space between a person’s decision to act and an actual suicide attempt. Example approaches include:
- Reduce access to lethal means among persons at risk of suicide
- Create healthy organizational policies and culture
- Reduce substance use through community-based policies and practices
Example policies, programs, and practices include:
Having access to health and behavioral healthcare services can reduce suicide risk. Care that is delivered efficiently and effectively can help prevent attempts and suicide. Example approaches include:
- Cover mental health conditions in health insurance policies
- Increase provider availability in underserved areas
- Provide rapid and remote access to help
- Create safer suicide care through systems
Example policies, programs, and practices include:
Connectedness and social support may help prevent suicidal behaviors by reducing isolation, encouraging healthy coping skills, and increasing a sense of belonging, value, and resilience during difficult times. Example approaches include:
- Promote healthy peer norms
- Engage community members in shared activities
Example policies, programs, and practices include:
Life skills, like coping and problem-solving skills, are important in protecting people from suicidal behaviors and in reaching key developmental milestones that impact psychological health. Example approaches include:
- Support social-emotional learning programs
- Teach parenting skills to improve family relationships
- Support resilience through education programs
Example policies, programs, and practices include:
Identifying people at risk for suicide, engaging individuals in suicide-focused treatment, and engaging in crisis care as needed can reduce risk factors for suicide. Example approaches include:
- Train gatekeepers
- Respond to crises
- Plan for safety and follow-up after an attempt
- Provide therapeutic approaches
Example policies, programs, and practices include:
- Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST)
- Question, Persuade, and Refer (QPR)
- Mental Health First Aid (MHFA)
- Teen Mental Health First Aid (tMHFA)
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
- Attempted Suicide Short Intervention Program
- Improving Mood—Promoting Access to Collaborative Treatment (IMPACT)
- Prevention of Suicide in Primary Care Elderly: Collaborative Trial (PROSPECT)
Postvention and safe reporting and messaging can impact risk and protective factors for suicide. Example approaches include:
- Intervene after a suicide (postvention)
- Report and message about suicide safely
Example policies, programs, and practices include:
Implementation guidance
CDC's Violence Prevention in Practice tool focuses on taking action to implement the strategies in the Prevention Resources for Action guides. The tool is designed to support state and local health agencies and other partners who have a role in planning, implementing, and evaluating violence and suicide prevention efforts.
Working together
Successful implementation of prevention strategies and approaches requires action from multiple sectors. All sectors have an important role in preventing suicide, including public health. However, the strategies outlined above cannot be implemented by the public health sector alone.
Collaborative partnerships involving multiple sectors are crucial in preventing suicide. Some examples of partners include:
- Community members, including individuals with lived experience
- Non-governmental organizations
- Community-based organizations including faith-based organizations
- Education systems
- Local, state, and federal government
- Social services
- Health and behavioral healthcare
- Housing authorities and agencies
More information regarding the roles of different sectors is available in the Appendix of the Suicide Prevention Resource for Action.