Expanded Comprehensive Suicide Prevention Across the United States

Notice of Funding Opportunity

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Click here [PDF – 702 KB] to access slides from an informational call held on April 19th, 2022

Click here [PDF – 281 KB] for Frequently Asked Questions

CDC’s Injury Center is announcing a new funding opportunity for Expansion of Comprehensive Suicide Prevention Across the United States (CDC-RFA-CE22-2204). This new notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) builds on and expands the Injury Center’s current Comprehensive Suicide Prevention program. The purpose of this NOFO is to implement and evaluate a comprehensive approach, with attention to one or more disproportionately affected populations (such as veterans, rural communities, tribal populations, LGBTQ, homeless, or others). These populations account for a significant proportion of the suicide burden and/or have suicide rates greater than the general population in a jurisdiction(s) (such as state, county, or tribe).

Funding will also support use of emergency department syndromic surveillance of nonfatal suicide-related outcomes (for example, suicide attempts and suicidal ideation). Collecting these near real-time data can help states rapidly track and respond to changing patterns in suicidal behavior. Key outcomes of this funding include a 10% reduction in morbidity and mortality in the disproportionately affected population(s) in the chosen jurisdiction(s).

Suicide is an urgent public health crisis in the United States. Despite two recent years of suicide declines, suicide rates increased 30% between 2000 and 2020 and took nearly 46,000 lives in 2020 alone. Suicide has devastating consequences on individuals, families, schools, workplaces, and entire communities. There is no single cause of suicide. Factors increasing suicide risk occur at the individual, relationship, community, and societal levels and may include job/financial, health, criminal/legal, and relationship problems, substance use, loss of a friend or loved one to suicide, a history of suicide attempts, and mental health concerns, among others.

In order to address this range of risk factors and prevent suicide, a comprehensive public health approach to suicide prevention is needed. This approach includes:

  • Strong leadership to convene and connect multi-sectoral partnerships
  • Use of data to identify disproportionately affected populations with increased risk of suicide, understand contributors to suicide and suicidal behaviors, and track trends in suicide morbidity (syndromic surveillance) and mortality (vital statistics)
  • Identifying and assessing gaps in existing programs in the jurisdiction
  • Implementing and evaluating complementary strategies with the best available evidence from Preventing Suicide: A Technical Package of Policy, Programs, and Practices [PDF – 62 pages]
  • Developing, implementing, and evaluating a communication and dissemination plan to communicate trends, progress, successes, and lessons learned to partners

CDC’s Injury Center intends to commit approximately $5.4 million per year for five years to support up to 6 cooperative agreement recipients.