Preventing suicide: a call to action

Abstract

The public health approach to suicide prevention requires us to move away from thinking about suicide as a purely clinical problem and to pay heed to the array of social determinants (such as financial hardship or domestic violence and abuse) that might lead people to consider suicide as an option. Clinical factors are important, and, indeed, clinical or indicated interventions are entirely appropriate for people who have reached a point of crisis and should be a mainstay of national suicide prevention strategies. However, our Series stresses the need for selective and universal interventions that tackle the pervasive problem of suicide in a more upstream way, preventing people reaching a crisis point. Many social determinants can best be addressed by sectors outside health, so we are calling for a whole-of-government commitment to suicide prevention. We make recommendations for actions in the areas of policy, practice, research, and advocacy. People with lived experience of suicide should have genuine involvement in all of these actions.