Set quantifiable goals for National Strategy for Suicide Prevention

In 2012, the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention, the nation’s public-private partnership for suicide prevention, released with the U.S. Surgeon General the National Strategy for Suicide Prevention, which served as a call to action intended to guide the nation’s suicide prevention efforts.[1] As the Action Alliance works with public and private sector stakeholders to update the strategy in 2024, it should set quantitative outcomes goals to drive suicide prevention efforts nationwide, which are critical to saving lives.

Government agencies should adopt such quantitative goals and commit to changing the policies and practices necessary to reduce suicide, particularly given recent alarming trends that have been moving in the wrong direction. Ambitious, quantitative goals have been critical to making progress in other areas. For example, in 2019, agencies across the Department of Health and Human Services developed an operational plan to pursue the bold goal of Ending the HIV Epidemic in the U.S. by 2030.[2] Similarly, in 2021, the Administration set goals of achieving a 50-52 percent reduction in greenhouse gas pollution in 2030 below 2005 levels and having 100 percent carbon pollution-free electricity by 2035.[3] Setting such goals for suicide prevention will be essential to changing practices across public and private stakeholders that are necessary to reduce suicide.