Module 2 > Comprehensiveness 

A public health approach to prevent suicide is comprehensive. This means it includes:

  • Prevention of suicide risk in the first place and strengthening of protective factors.

  • Intervention to identify and support people already at risk and prevent re-attempts.

  • Postvention to assist survivors of suicide loss and people with lived experience.

  • Strategies geared to subpopulations at highest risk for suicide. 

  • Strategies that involve a broad array of partners from different fields and sectors who can reach people in settings beyond healthcare and behavioral health, such as schools, workplaces, and others.

The figure below organizes the strategies included in the CDC suicide prevention technical package according to the Prevention Continuum.

 

Often in response to a catastrophic event, the focus turns more to intervention and postvention, but it’s important to attend to suicide prevention across the continuum and strengthen comunity factors that might be compromised as a result of the catastrophic event. 

Learn more: This May 2020 webinar, The Critical Role for Prevention During and Post Pandemic, hosted by the Prevention Technology Transfer Center, explored the increase in alcohol sales during the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic, how this heightened risk for suicide and other issues, and what a prevention approach to this situation might look like. 


Quiz

Click each item in turn to check your answer.

A: Prevention - Strengthening household financial security can reduce suicide risk.

B: Postvention - When a suicide has already occurred, such supports may reduce contagion effects among others.

C: Intervention - Reducing access to lethal means can reduce suicide and suicide attempts among people already at risk.


The Prevention Continuum allows us to:

  • Inventory existing suicide prevention work so we can leverage what we have and avoid duplication

  • Ask “what’s missing?” and select strategies that fill identified gaps along the Prevention Continuum


Activity

Fill out the diagram according to where your local suicide prevention efforts fit along the continuum.

Once you've entered your responses, move your mouse over the table until the icons appear, then click the "download" icon to save to your computer and print.

If you prefer to download the table before filling it in, or if the tool doesn't appear in your browser, you can download the table here.

 

 

Resource allocation is an important metric in evaluating an approach to suicide prevention. Filling out the continuum may give you some sense of which strategies are already well-funded in your community, and which are most in need of additional resources. You also may realize that you do not have a full picture of all the suicide prevention activities underway in your community. In this case, you may need to reach out to learn more about possible activities taking place in under-populated parts of the continuum, and look for partners who can fill in the gaps.

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