Suicide Prevention Resources

Suicide Prevention Resource for Action: CDC's Suicide Prevention Resource for Action details the strategies with the best available evidence to reduce suicide. It can help states and communities prioritize suicide prevention activities most likely to have an impact. Download the summary.

The State of State, Territorial, and Tribal Suicide Prevention: Findings from Key Informant Interviews and Qualitative Web-based Survey Questions: This report (Part Three) describes qualitative findings from key informant interviews conducted with suicide prevention coordinators from nine states and qualitative information from open-ended questions used in the online survey.

The State of State, Territorial, and Tribal Suicide Prevention: Findings from Reviews of Suicide Prevention Plans: This report (Part Two) highlights key findings from the review of state and territorial suicide prevention plans. This report can be used in conjunction with Part One to better understand state and territorial activities and gaps in suicide prevention planning.

The State of State, Territorial, and Tribal Suicide Prevention: Findings from a Web-based Survey: This report (Part One) highlights key findings from a web-based survey. Results can inform suicide prevention infrastructure and prevention activities necessary to reduce rates of suicide across the United States.

This is not an exhaustive list of MMWRs. Visit the MMWR website for a complete list.

1. Vital Signs: Suicide Rates and Selected County-Level Factors — United States, 2022
2. Notes from the Field: Firearm Suicide Rates, by Race and Ethnicity — United States, 2019–2022
3. Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviors Among High School Students — Youth Risk Behavior Survey, United States, 2021.
4. Association of Mental Health Conditions, Recent Stressful Life Events, and Adverse Childhood Experiences with Postpartum Substance Use ― Seven States, 2019–2020.
5. Suspected Suicide Attempts by Self-Poisoning Among Persons Aged 10–19 Years During the COVID-19 Pandemic — United States, 2020–2022.
6. Notes from the Field: Recent Changes in Suicide Rates, by Race and Ethnicity and Age Group — United States, 2021.
7. Adverse Childhood Experiences During the COVID-19 Pandemic and Associations with Poor Mental Health and Suicidal Behaviors Among High School Students — Adolescent Behaviors and Experiences Survey, United States, January–June 2021.
   
8. Suicides Among American Indian or Alaska Native Persons — National Violent Death Reporting System, United States, 2015–2020.
   
9. Vital Signs: Changes in Firearm Homicide and Suicide Rates — United States, 2019–2020.
10. Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviors Among Adults Aged ≥18 Years — United States, 2015–2019.

This is a list of relevant journal articles from the past five years.

Rice, K., Brown, M., Nataraj, N., & Xu, L. (2023). Circumstances contributing to suicide among U.S. adolescents 10–19 years with and without a known mental health condition: National Violent Death Reporting System, 2013–2018. Journal of Adolescent Health.

Holland, K. M., Jones, C., Vivolo-Kantor, A. M., et al. (2021). Trends in US emergency department visits for mental health, overdose, and violence outcomes before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. JAMA Psychiatry, 78(4), 372-379.

Ehlman, D. C., Haileyesus, T., Lee, R., Ballesteros, M. F., & Yard, E. (2021). Evaluation of the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System–All injury program's self-directed violence data, United States, 2018. Journal of Safety Research, 76, 327-331.

Bledsoe, M., Captanian, A., & Somji, A. (2021). Special Report from the CDC: Strengthening social connections to prevent suicide and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs): Actions and opportunities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Safety Research, 77, 328-333.

Wilkins, N. J., Clayton, H., Jones, C. M., & Brown, M. (2021). Current prescription opioid misuse and suicide risk behaviors among high school students. Pediatrics, 147(4).

National Strategy for Suicide Prevention: CDC, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and other federal agencies collaborated with the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention, a public-private partnership, to create the 2024 National Strategy for Suicide Prevention. This strategy provides a roadmap for tackling the ongoing public health crisis of suicide.

Recommendations for Media Reporting on Suicide: A reference guide developed by leading public health and media organizations that outlines evidence-based best practices for safely and responsibly reporting on suicide.

World Health Organization Report on Preventing Suicide: This report aims to increase the awareness of the public health significance of suicide and suicide attempts and to make suicide prevention a higher priority on the global public health agenda.

Preventing Suicide: A Resource for Media Professionals: This resource summarizes the current evidence on the impact of media reporting of suicide, and provides information for media professionals about how to report on suicide.

National Strategy for Preventing Veteran Suicide 2018-2028: The resource provides a framework for identifying priorities, organizing efforts, and contributing to a national focus on Veteran suicide prevention over the next several years.

African American Youth Suicide: Report to Congress: This report summarizes research on rising suicide rates among African American youth, highlighting key risk factors to inform effective prevention efforts.

Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS): CDC's interactive, online database provides fatal and nonfatal injury, violent death, and cost of injury data.

National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS): NAMCS is designed to meet the need for objective, reliable information about the provision and use of ambulatory medical care services in the United States. Findings are based on a sample of visits to non-federally employed office-based physicians who are primarily engaged in direct patient care and, starting in 2006, a separate sample of visits to community health centers.

National Electronic Injury Surveillance System-All Injury Program (NEISS-AIP): NEISS-AIP provides nationally representative data about all types and causes of nonfatal injuries treated in United States hospital emergency departments. CDC uses NEISS-AIP data to generate national estimates of nonfatal injuries, including those related to self-harm.

National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NHAMCS): NHAMCS is designed to collect data on the utilization and provision of ambulatory care services in hospital emergency and outpatient departments and ambulatory surgery locations. Findings are based on a national sample of visits to the emergency departments, outpatient departments, and ambulatory surgery locations of non-institutional general and short-stay hospitals.

National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS): CDC funds NVDRS in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico to gather, share, and link state-level data on violent deaths. NVDRS provides CDC and states with a more complete understanding of violent deaths. This enables policymakers and community leaders to make informed decisions about violence prevention programs, including those that address suicide.

CDC WONDER: WONDER manages nearly 20 collections of public-use data for U.S. births, deaths, cancer diagnoses, tuberculosis cases, vaccinations, environmental exposures, and population estimates, among many other topics. These data collections are available as online databases, which provide public access to ad-hoc queries, summary statistics, maps, charts, and data extracts.

Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS): CDC's YRBSS monitors health risk behaviors that contribute to the leading causes of death, disability, and social problems, including suicide attempts and related behaviors, among 9th through 12th grade students in the United States.

National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH): NSDUH provides up-to-date information on substance use, mental health conditions, and suicide-related behaviors in the United States.

National Inpatient Sample (NIS): The NIS is a database of hospital inpatient stays used to identify, track, and analyze national trends in health care utilization, access, charges, quality, and outcomes including injuries from suicide attempts.

Global Health Observatory Data (GHO): GHO is WHO's gateway to health-related statistics for more than 1,000 indicators for its 194 Member States.

Coping with Stress: CDC's web page on learning to cope with stress in a healthy way.

Coping with a Disaster or Traumatic Event: CDC's web page on mental health during and after a disaster. This page includes information on coping with the stress that results from natural and manmade traumatic events.

Mental Health: This page provides information on all of CDC's work related to mental health.

Suicide in Rural America: CDC's web page on suicide in rural areas that provides reports, a policy brief, a press release, and suicide prevention resources.

BeThe1To: This is the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline's campaign for National Suicide Prevention Month and beyond, spreading the word about actions we can all take to prevent suicide.

Community-Led Suicide Prevention: Community-Led Suicide Prevention (CLSP) helps communities come together to create and reach their suicide prevention goals. CLSP's web-based toolkit includes step-by-step information and how-to tools for implementing CDC's Suicide Prevention Resource for Action.

Indian Health Service Suicide Prevention Program: This national initiative to prevent suicide is based on fostering collaborations across tribes, tribal organizations, urban Indian organizations, and the entire Indian Health System.

National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention: The National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention is the public-private partnership advancing the National Strategy for Suicide Prevention.

National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN): NCTSN works to raise the standard of care and improve access to services for traumatized children, their families, and communities throughout the United States.

National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH): NIMH is the lead institute at the National Institutes of Health dedicated to research on mental health disorders.

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Suicide Prevention Program (SAMHSA): SAMHSA is the federal agency charged with improving the quality and availability of prevention, treatment, and rehabilitative services to reduce illness, death, disability, and cost to society resulting from substance abuse and mental illnesses.

The Suicide Prevention Resource Center (SPRC): The Suicide Prevention Resource Center (SPRC) is the only federally supported resource center devoted to advancing the implementation of the National Strategy for Suicide Prevention.

U.S. Department of Defense Suicide Prevention: The U.S. Department of Defense Suicide Prevention Office oversees the suicide prevention work across all branches of the military.

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Suicide Prevention: The VA provides health and mental health services to U.S. veterans. This page provides information about mental health conditions, including suicide prevention, and how veterans can get help.

Guidelines for Ethically Reporting on Suicide: The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention provides evidence-based recommendations to help journalists report on suicide responsibly.

The Suicide, Overdose, and Adverse Childhood Experiences Prevention Capacity Assessment Tool (SPACECAT): SPACECAT helps local, state, and territorial health agencies better understand their capacity to address suicide, overdose, and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). Prevention of these health issues involves cross-sector collaboration targeting factors at the individual, relationship, community, and societal levels.

The National Association of County and City Health Officials' (NACCHO) Suicide, Overdose, and Adverse Childhood Experiences Toolkit aims to help local health departments translate data from their Suicide, Overdose, and Adverse Childhood Experiences Prevention Capacity Assessment Tool (SPACECAT) results into public health action. It provides information and guidance on how to start strengthening LHD capacity to address the intersection of suicide, overdose, and ACEs prevention.

Transforming Communities: Key Elements for the Implementation of Comprehensive Community-Based Suicide Prevention: This resource presents seven key elements for comprehensive community-based suicide prevention, all aimed at helping communities create policies, programs, and services that reduce suicide and improve individual, family, and community health.

Watch video: Community Partnerships to Prevent Suicide, Overdose, and Adverse Childhood Experiences: Suicide, overdose, and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are three urgent, preventable, and connected public health issues. Learn how the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) and Education Development Center (EDC), with support from CDC, are helping local health departments and their communities adapt a community-led suicide prevention framework to focus prevention efforts on the intersection of suicide, overdose, and ACEs.

Rapid response training and tools: These trainings focus on how to compile, tailor, and rapidly disseminate suicide and ACEs prevention interventions. Modules highlight strategies that 1) have been adapted for a shelter-in-place/infrastructure disruption context, and 2) are responsive to populations most at risk and most impacted by the stress, anxiety, social isolation, loss and grief brought about and exacerbated by the pandemic.

Community-Led Suicide Prevention Toolkit: Community-Led Suicide Prevention is a project of Education Development Center (EDC). Community-Led Suicide Prevention helps communities come together to create and reach their suicide prevention goals. This web toolkit provides step-by-step information, how-to tools, interactive training, and tailored coaching to support communities in achieving comprehensive suicide prevention.

Indigenous Evaluation Toolkit. This Toolkit provides step-by-step guidance, worksheets and concrete examples to support communities looking to Indigenize and decolonize their program evaluation. Download the full Toolkit or fillable PDF versions of the activity worksheets.

Veteran Suicide Prevention Program Evaluation Toolkit (VSPE Toolkit). This toolkit is to be used to develop and implement evaluation plans for public health programs, particularly for upstream suicide prevention strategies. The VSPE Toolkit is based on the CDC Framework for Program Evaluation in Public Health and provides VSOs with usable content on formative and process program evaluation of upstream veteran suicide prevention programs.

Suicide Indicator Explorer (Explorer): Developed by the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO), in coordination with CDC, this is a visual tool that compiles data to assist health agencies in identifying measures for their suicide prevention programs. The Explorer can be used to determine suicide burden, patterns of risk and protective factors for suicide, data-driven prevention strategies that align with CDC's Suicide Prevention Resource for Action, data for evaluating programs, and disproportionately affected populations.

Data Sources and Strategies for Suicide Prevention Among Disproportionately Affected Populations: High-quality data and targeted resources are crucial to identifying suicide-related inequities and prevention strategies. Learn more about effective strategies and solutions for disproportionately affected populations in this new resource.

Violence Prevention in Practice: Walk through planning, implementing, and evaluating strategies in CDC’s violence and suicide prevention Resources for Action. Resources for Action comprise proven approaches to prevent or reduce public health problems like violence and suicide. They aim to help change norms, environments, and behaviors, and reduce or eliminate violence in communities.

Suicide Prevention Communication Playbook: This playbook can help you develop suicide prevention communication campaigns that contribute to behavior change. It can also help you clarify your goals, define and understand your audience, and develop and evaluate your campaign.