Suicide is a complex issue with no single cause. However, research shows that preventing suicide can be achieved by addressing risk factors and supporting protective factors.
Be aware of warning signs such as talking about harming yourself or joking about dying. Anyone showing these symptoms needs access to immediate help.
Increased Life Skills
Life skills are a group of abilities that make it easier for people to manage their lives and reduce the risk of suicide. These include skills related to money management, cooking/food preparation, and finding and managing housing. These are especially important for individuals at higher risk of suicide such as those exiting foster care or living homeless. Other life skills included assertiveness, self-esteem, and future planning.
Supportive relationships and community connectedness have also been found to protect against suicide. These can be fostered through social programs for specific population groups or activities that encourage emotional support and build resilience. Other prevention measures include promoting mental health warning signs and access to help through social media campaigns. Personalized safety planning has been shown to reduce suicide attempts through a collaborative process where an individual works with their health care provider on limiting access to lethal means (e.g., firearms, pills).
Learn how to recognize the warning signs of suicide and how to support someone who is at risk. Also find information about the National Suicide Prevention Strategy and resources for youth, families, professionals, and communities.
Enhanced Connectedness
When people feel connected to others, they often have access to resources that help them cope with challenging situations. These resources include support services, including counseling and psychiatric care, as well as social supports such as teachers, family, friends, mentors, and peer-delivered programs.
Research has found that increased connections with other people can prevent the negative impacts of risk factors on a person’s life, such as mental illness; relationship break-ups or other forms of isolation; adverse childhood experiences; stigma related to seeking help; and easy access to lethal means. These protective functions can reduce the risk of suicide.
Community-level prevention efforts, such as promoting school, family, and faith-based support networks, can help to increase the likelihood of these types of positive attachments. In addition, assessing community strengths and gaps and improving the availability of culturally relevant information and community-helping resources can increase opportunities for connected individuals, families, and communities to be supported during difficult times.
Supportive Relationships
Supportive relationships have been found to protect against suicide even in the face of risk factors. This is true whether the support comes from friends, family or a mental health professional. Social programs designed for specific groups and other interventions that promote a sense of belonging and emotional support have been shown to reduce isolation and increase resilience.
In addition to being a preventive measure, supportive relationships can help individuals who are struggling with suicidal thoughts. For instance, a therapist can teach them about the ineffective patterns of thinking that cause those thoughts and help them learn healthier coping strategies.
Another preventive measure is reducing access to lethal means of suicide. This can be done by removing guns, pills (over-the-counter and prescription), ropes, knives, chemicals or other items that can lead to self-harm. Also, ensuring that people have continuity of care and information through cross-training, protocols and other tools can also reduce the risk of suicide.
Increased Access to Mental Health Services
Providing people with access to the mental health services they need is a preventive measure against suicide. Personalized safety planning can help reduce suicidal thoughts and actions, and research shows that people who are at risk can be helped by a variety of psychosocial interventions such as supportive phone calls or caring letters.
Universal screening—such as a simple three-question tool that’s been shown to double the number of adults identified by emergency department staff as at risk for suicide—is another way to increase access to care. And after a person’s immediate crisis is over, it’s important to continue support over the long haul.
The 2024 National Strategy for Suicide Prevention and the Zero Suicide framework can guide communities in identifying needs and developing strategies to ensure all individuals have access to mental health care. Ensuring mental health care is available and affordable is a critical part of this effort. The enactment of the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act in 2008, which was strengthened on a bipartisan basis in 2020, requires that insurers offer coverage for mental illness and substance use disorders at parity with physical health benefits.