Feature Article
About the NSSP
It’s been called a public health imperative. A means to reduce the fifth leading cause of potential life loss in the United States. The National Strategy for Suicide Prevention (NSSP), published in 2001, outlines 11 goals and 68 objectives for preventing suicide. Its goals are as follows:
NSSP GOAL 1: Promote awareness that suicide is a public health problem that is preventable including developing public education campaigns and sponsoring national conferences and special-issue forums.
NSSP GOAL 2: Develop broad-based support for suicide prevention including organizing a federal interagency committed to ensure implementation of the NSSP, and establishing public/private partnerships dedicated to implementing the NSSP.
NSSP GOAL 3: Develop and implement strategies to reduce the stigma associated with being a consumer of mental health, substance abuse and suicide prevention services including boosting the number of suicidal persons who receive mental health care, and transforming public attitudes to view mental and substance use disorders as real illnesses, equal to physical illness.
NSSP GOAL 4: Develop and implement suicide prevention programs including increasing the number of states with comprehensive suicide prevention plans, boosting the number of evidence-based suicide prevention programs for all populations, and developing technical support centers to build the capacity across the states to evaluate and implement prevention programs.
NSSP GOAL 5: Promote efforts to reduce access to lethal means and methods of self-harm including awareness and education of gatekeepers to the danger of access to lethal means for someone who is suicidal, and what actions to take to reduce risk of suicide.
NSSP GOAL 6: Implement training for recognition of at-risk behavior and delivery of effective treatment including improving training and education for health professionals and key community gatekeepers to help them prevent suicides.
NSSP GOAL 7: Develop and promote effective clinical and professional practices including incorporating suicide-risk screening in primary care, streamlining and unifying assessment of suicide risk in health-care settings, and better allocation of resources for those in need of specialized treatment.
NSSP GOAL 8: Improve access to and community linkages with mental health and substance abuse services including increasing the number of states requiring health insurance plans to cover mental health and substance abuse care on par with coverage for physical health care, defining and implementing screening guidelines suicidal populations, and launching support programs for suicide survivors.
NSSP GOAL 9: Improve reporting and portrayals of suicidal behavior, mental illness and substance abuse in the entertainment and news media including establishing a public/private group to promote responsible representation of suicidal behaviors and mental illness in television and film, and increasing the number of journalism schools that adequately address reporting of mental illness and suicide in their curricula.
NSSP GOAL 10: Promote and support research on suicide and suicide prevention including developing a national suicide research agenda, increasing funds for prevention research, evaluating prevention interventions and establishing a registry of interventions with demonstrated effectiveness.
NSSP GOAL 11: Improve and expand surveillance systems including developing standardized protocols for death scene investigations, boosting the number of hospitals that code for external cause of injuries, implementing a national violent death reporting system that includes suicide, and support pilot projects to link and analyze information on self-destructive behavior.
