On April 23, 20224, President Biden, in collaboration with the United States Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) launched the comprehensive 2024 National Strategy For Suicide Prevention! This 10-year plan works to minimize the gaps within suicide prevention efforts and enhance methods to ensure the safety of all people. The U.S. D.H.H.S specified 5 concrete goals in its strategic pursuits: “…to prevent suicide risk in the first place; identify and support people with increased risk through treatment and crisis intervention; prevent reattempts; promote long-term recovery; and support survivors of suicide loss.”
To employ these changes, D.H.H.S has constructed 4 divisions of strategic directions with specified goals for the overall betterment of suicide prevention for all individuals:
- Strategic Direction 1: Community-Based Suicide Prevention
- Goal 1: Establish effective, broad-based, collaborative, and sustainable suicide prevention partnerships.
- Goal 2: Support upstream comprehensive community-based suicide prevention.
- Goal 3: Reduce access to lethal means among people at risk of suicide.
- Goal 4: Conduct postvention and support people with suicide-centered lived experience.
- Goal 5: Integrate suicide prevention into the culture of the workplace and into other community settings.
- Goal 6: Build and sustain suicide prevention infrastructure at the state, tribal, local, and territorial levels.
- Goal 7: Implement research-informed suicide prevention communication activities in diverse populations using best practices from communication science.
- Strategic Direction 2: Treatment And Crisis Services
- Goal 8: Implement effective suicide prevention services as a core component of health care.
- Goal 9: Improve the quality and accessibility of crisis care services across all communities.
- Strategic Direction 3: Surveillance, Quality Improvement, And Research
- Goal 10: Improve the quality, timeliness, scope, usefulness, and accessibility of data needed for suicide-related surveillance, research, evaluation, and quality improvement.
- Goal 11: Promote and support research on suicide prevention.
- Strategic Direction 4: Health Equity In Suicide Prevention
- Goal 12: Embed health equity into all comprehensive suicide prevention activities.
- Goal 13: Implement comprehensive suicide prevention strategies for populations disproportionately affected by suicide, with a focus on historically marginalized communities, persons with suicide-centered lived experience, and youth.
- Goal 14: Create an equitable and diverse suicide prevention workforce that is equipped and supported to address the needs of the communities they serve.
- Goal 15: Improve and expand effective suicide prevention programs for populations disproportionately impacted by suicide across the life span through improved data, research, and evaluation.
We are excited about the commitment the federal government has made to the well-being of our country’s mental health and are exhilarated to see how this strategy will provide positive and impactful change to suicide prevention efforts! Please Note: All Strategic Directions and Goals were quoted directly from the U.S. D.H.H.S website and can be found HERE, along with the full 2024 Suicide Prevention Strategy!
To learn more about New Hampshire suicide prevention efforts, please visit: www.preventsuicidenh.org
