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VIDEO: National suicide hotline could result from pending U.S. law
WASHINGTON – A bill working its way through the U.S. Congress that would mandate study of the feasibility of a three-digit phone number for suicide prevention and mental health crisis has the potential to establish not only a much-needed national hotline, but more broadly “reboot U.S. crisis care,” Michael F. Hogan, PhD, said at the annual conference of the American Association of Suicidology.
“If we get this legislation passed and some funding, it is a remarkable opportunity to get it right,” said Dr. Hogan, a mental health policy consultant based in Delmar, N.Y., and former commissioner of the New York State Office of Mental Health. A single, “N11,” three-digit phone number for suicide prevention, substance abuse, and mental health crises would “provide a skeleton for a whole new system of crisis centers.”
The pending legislation, the National Suicide Hotline Improvement Act of 2017, “would create parity between brain health and heart health,” Dr. Hogan noted in a video interview. The bill passed the Senate in November 2017, and in late March 2018 had a positive hearing before the Energy and Commerce Committee of the House of Representatives. “The prospects are pretty good,” he said.
Currently, U.S. services are “a mess,” bemoaned Dr. Hogan, who attributed the problem to abandonment of a national program starting in 1981 because of funding changes introduced by the Reagan administration. The centerpiece of the current U.S. system, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, receives limited and indirect federal support and relies on coordination among more than 160 local crisis line operations across the country that get no federal funding. Many calls into the Lifeline are, by necessity, answered outside of the locality or even the state from where the call was placed. Inadequacies in the resources available to help people who are suicidal or having other mental health crises have placed the response burden on police departments and emergency departments, “the worst place to go” for mental health care, Dr. Hogan said.
“The primary way around the country to address the problem is cops and EDs; that’s expensive and bad. When you don’t have good crisis services, people go to emergency departments where it’s ‘go upstairs or go home,’ ” he lamented.
Establishment of a centralized and funded U.S. crisis call system would tie into other measures aimed at transforming national crisis services called for by the Crisis Now program of the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors, Dr. Hogan said.
Dr. Hogan had no disclosures.
WASHINGTON – A bill working its way through the U.S. Congress that would mandate study of the feasibility of a three-digit phone number for suicide prevention and mental health crisis has the potential to establish not only a much-needed national hotline, but more broadly “reboot U.S. crisis care,” Michael F. Hogan, PhD, said at the annual conference of the American Association of Suicidology.
“If we get this legislation passed and some funding, it is a remarkable opportunity to get it right,” said Dr. Hogan, a mental health policy consultant based in Delmar, N.Y., and former commissioner of the New York State Office of Mental Health. A single, “N11,” three-digit phone number for suicide prevention, substance abuse, and mental health crises would “provide a skeleton for a whole new system of crisis centers.”
The pending legislation, the National Suicide Hotline Improvement Act of 2017, “would create parity between brain health and heart health,” Dr. Hogan noted in a video interview. The bill passed the Senate in November 2017, and in late March 2018 had a positive hearing before the Energy and Commerce Committee of the House of Representatives. “The prospects are pretty good,” he said.
Currently, U.S. services are “a mess,” bemoaned Dr. Hogan, who attributed the problem to abandonment of a national program starting in 1981 because of funding changes introduced by the Reagan administration. The centerpiece of the current U.S. system, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, receives limited and indirect federal support and relies on coordination among more than 160 local crisis line operations across the country that get no federal funding. Many calls into the Lifeline are, by necessity, answered outside of the locality or even the state from where the call was placed. Inadequacies in the resources available to help people who are suicidal or having other mental health crises have placed the response burden on police departments and emergency departments, “the worst place to go” for mental health care, Dr. Hogan said.
“The primary way around the country to address the problem is cops and EDs; that’s expensive and bad. When you don’t have good crisis services, people go to emergency departments where it’s ‘go upstairs or go home,’ ” he lamented.
Establishment of a centralized and funded U.S. crisis call system would tie into other measures aimed at transforming national crisis services called for by the Crisis Now program of the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors, Dr. Hogan said.
Dr. Hogan had no disclosures.
WASHINGTON – A bill working its way through the U.S. Congress that would mandate study of the feasibility of a three-digit phone number for suicide prevention and mental health crisis has the potential to establish not only a much-needed national hotline, but more broadly “reboot U.S. crisis care,” Michael F. Hogan, PhD, said at the annual conference of the American Association of Suicidology.
“If we get this legislation passed and some funding, it is a remarkable opportunity to get it right,” said Dr. Hogan, a mental health policy consultant based in Delmar, N.Y., and former commissioner of the New York State Office of Mental Health. A single, “N11,” three-digit phone number for suicide prevention, substance abuse, and mental health crises would “provide a skeleton for a whole new system of crisis centers.”
The pending legislation, the National Suicide Hotline Improvement Act of 2017, “would create parity between brain health and heart health,” Dr. Hogan noted in a video interview. The bill passed the Senate in November 2017, and in late March 2018 had a positive hearing before the Energy and Commerce Committee of the House of Representatives. “The prospects are pretty good,” he said.
Currently, U.S. services are “a mess,” bemoaned Dr. Hogan, who attributed the problem to abandonment of a national program starting in 1981 because of funding changes introduced by the Reagan administration. The centerpiece of the current U.S. system, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, receives limited and indirect federal support and relies on coordination among more than 160 local crisis line operations across the country that get no federal funding. Many calls into the Lifeline are, by necessity, answered outside of the locality or even the state from where the call was placed. Inadequacies in the resources available to help people who are suicidal or having other mental health crises have placed the response burden on police departments and emergency departments, “the worst place to go” for mental health care, Dr. Hogan said.
“The primary way around the country to address the problem is cops and EDs; that’s expensive and bad. When you don’t have good crisis services, people go to emergency departments where it’s ‘go upstairs or go home,’ ” he lamented.
Establishment of a centralized and funded U.S. crisis call system would tie into other measures aimed at transforming national crisis services called for by the Crisis Now program of the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors, Dr. Hogan said.
Dr. Hogan had no disclosures.
REPORTING FROM THE AAS ANNUAL CONFERENCE
Suicide prevention, NRA team up for safer gun storage
WASHINGTON – A suicide prevention organization based at the University of Washington partnered with the National Rifle Association and other gun-user organizations to launch a state-wide program in Washington aimed at safe firearm storage to cut suicide rates.
with plans to expand these activities, Jennifer P. Stuber, Ph.D., said at the annual conference of the American Association of Suicidology.
The idea behind SAFER Homes came from recognition that a majority of suicides are caused by firearms, a majority of deaths from firearms are suicides, and that a potentially effective way to cut suicide numbers is by restricting unauthorized or unintended firearm access, especially to middle-aged men, said Dr. Stuber, a health policy researcher at the University of Washington, Seattle, and founder and policy director of Forefront Suicide Prevention, a social impact organization operated by the university’s school of social work. SAFER Homes also came into being as Dr. Stuber realized that she had a receptive audience on the issue of safe gun storage to prevent suicides among gun owners, gun retailers, and gun-rights proponents.
“There is remarkably little push back. These are folks who care about suicide. Seventy percent of gun-shop owners have experienced a personal suicide loss, and shop owners don’t want to be the one who sells someone a gun who then uses it to end their life,” Dr. Stuber said in an interview.
The Second Amendment Foundation gun-rights organization has been the main partner with Forefront Suicide Prevention in launching SAFER Homes Suicide Aware, but the campaign also received endorsement from the National Rifle Association. Dr. Stuber also worked with the Second Amendment Foundation and the National Rifle Association to get legislation passed in Washington to expand education on suicide prevention through improved gun safety. Dr. Stuber became an advocate for suicide prevention and safer gun storage following the firearm suicide of her husband in 2011, an experience she wrote about in a 2016 essay.
Preventing suicide through safer storage of firearms makes sense because the U.S. demographic subgroup with the highest number of suicides is men 35-64 years old. In this subgroup, the majority of those killed by suicide were never identified as depressed or having a mental health problem, and more than 80% never had a prior suicide attempt, said Jeffrey C. Sung, MD, a psychiatrist at the University of Washington who has worked with Dr. Stuber on the SAFER Homes campaign. He cited a study of 310 suicides among patients in the Veterans Health Administration system (93% men, 76% aged 50 years or older) that showed 72% reported having no suicide ideation on the most recent health questionnaire prior to their suicide (Psych Services. 2016 May;67[5]:517-22).
Because men like these do not come to clinical attention prior to their suicide, the best preventive strategy is to focus on improved safety measures to control potential means of lethality, said Dr. Sung, who is also immediate past president of the Washington State Psychiatric Society.
SAFER Homes “goes to community-based settings, like gun shows, where men in their middle years can be reached,” Dr. Stuber noted. By talking about taking steps to reduce the risk of firearm suicide with attendees at gun shows and with gun retailers, “you’re pushing on an open door,” Dr. Sung added.
Dr. Stuber and Dr. Sung had no disclosures.
SOURCE: Stuber J et al. Annual conference of the American Association of Suicidology.
WASHINGTON – A suicide prevention organization based at the University of Washington partnered with the National Rifle Association and other gun-user organizations to launch a state-wide program in Washington aimed at safe firearm storage to cut suicide rates.
with plans to expand these activities, Jennifer P. Stuber, Ph.D., said at the annual conference of the American Association of Suicidology.
The idea behind SAFER Homes came from recognition that a majority of suicides are caused by firearms, a majority of deaths from firearms are suicides, and that a potentially effective way to cut suicide numbers is by restricting unauthorized or unintended firearm access, especially to middle-aged men, said Dr. Stuber, a health policy researcher at the University of Washington, Seattle, and founder and policy director of Forefront Suicide Prevention, a social impact organization operated by the university’s school of social work. SAFER Homes also came into being as Dr. Stuber realized that she had a receptive audience on the issue of safe gun storage to prevent suicides among gun owners, gun retailers, and gun-rights proponents.
“There is remarkably little push back. These are folks who care about suicide. Seventy percent of gun-shop owners have experienced a personal suicide loss, and shop owners don’t want to be the one who sells someone a gun who then uses it to end their life,” Dr. Stuber said in an interview.
The Second Amendment Foundation gun-rights organization has been the main partner with Forefront Suicide Prevention in launching SAFER Homes Suicide Aware, but the campaign also received endorsement from the National Rifle Association. Dr. Stuber also worked with the Second Amendment Foundation and the National Rifle Association to get legislation passed in Washington to expand education on suicide prevention through improved gun safety. Dr. Stuber became an advocate for suicide prevention and safer gun storage following the firearm suicide of her husband in 2011, an experience she wrote about in a 2016 essay.
Preventing suicide through safer storage of firearms makes sense because the U.S. demographic subgroup with the highest number of suicides is men 35-64 years old. In this subgroup, the majority of those killed by suicide were never identified as depressed or having a mental health problem, and more than 80% never had a prior suicide attempt, said Jeffrey C. Sung, MD, a psychiatrist at the University of Washington who has worked with Dr. Stuber on the SAFER Homes campaign. He cited a study of 310 suicides among patients in the Veterans Health Administration system (93% men, 76% aged 50 years or older) that showed 72% reported having no suicide ideation on the most recent health questionnaire prior to their suicide (Psych Services. 2016 May;67[5]:517-22).
Because men like these do not come to clinical attention prior to their suicide, the best preventive strategy is to focus on improved safety measures to control potential means of lethality, said Dr. Sung, who is also immediate past president of the Washington State Psychiatric Society.
SAFER Homes “goes to community-based settings, like gun shows, where men in their middle years can be reached,” Dr. Stuber noted. By talking about taking steps to reduce the risk of firearm suicide with attendees at gun shows and with gun retailers, “you’re pushing on an open door,” Dr. Sung added.
Dr. Stuber and Dr. Sung had no disclosures.
SOURCE: Stuber J et al. Annual conference of the American Association of Suicidology.
WASHINGTON – A suicide prevention organization based at the University of Washington partnered with the National Rifle Association and other gun-user organizations to launch a state-wide program in Washington aimed at safe firearm storage to cut suicide rates.
with plans to expand these activities, Jennifer P. Stuber, Ph.D., said at the annual conference of the American Association of Suicidology.
The idea behind SAFER Homes came from recognition that a majority of suicides are caused by firearms, a majority of deaths from firearms are suicides, and that a potentially effective way to cut suicide numbers is by restricting unauthorized or unintended firearm access, especially to middle-aged men, said Dr. Stuber, a health policy researcher at the University of Washington, Seattle, and founder and policy director of Forefront Suicide Prevention, a social impact organization operated by the university’s school of social work. SAFER Homes also came into being as Dr. Stuber realized that she had a receptive audience on the issue of safe gun storage to prevent suicides among gun owners, gun retailers, and gun-rights proponents.
“There is remarkably little push back. These are folks who care about suicide. Seventy percent of gun-shop owners have experienced a personal suicide loss, and shop owners don’t want to be the one who sells someone a gun who then uses it to end their life,” Dr. Stuber said in an interview.
The Second Amendment Foundation gun-rights organization has been the main partner with Forefront Suicide Prevention in launching SAFER Homes Suicide Aware, but the campaign also received endorsement from the National Rifle Association. Dr. Stuber also worked with the Second Amendment Foundation and the National Rifle Association to get legislation passed in Washington to expand education on suicide prevention through improved gun safety. Dr. Stuber became an advocate for suicide prevention and safer gun storage following the firearm suicide of her husband in 2011, an experience she wrote about in a 2016 essay.
Preventing suicide through safer storage of firearms makes sense because the U.S. demographic subgroup with the highest number of suicides is men 35-64 years old. In this subgroup, the majority of those killed by suicide were never identified as depressed or having a mental health problem, and more than 80% never had a prior suicide attempt, said Jeffrey C. Sung, MD, a psychiatrist at the University of Washington who has worked with Dr. Stuber on the SAFER Homes campaign. He cited a study of 310 suicides among patients in the Veterans Health Administration system (93% men, 76% aged 50 years or older) that showed 72% reported having no suicide ideation on the most recent health questionnaire prior to their suicide (Psych Services. 2016 May;67[5]:517-22).
Because men like these do not come to clinical attention prior to their suicide, the best preventive strategy is to focus on improved safety measures to control potential means of lethality, said Dr. Sung, who is also immediate past president of the Washington State Psychiatric Society.
SAFER Homes “goes to community-based settings, like gun shows, where men in their middle years can be reached,” Dr. Stuber noted. By talking about taking steps to reduce the risk of firearm suicide with attendees at gun shows and with gun retailers, “you’re pushing on an open door,” Dr. Sung added.
Dr. Stuber and Dr. Sung had no disclosures.
SOURCE: Stuber J et al. Annual conference of the American Association of Suicidology.
EXPERT ANALYSIS FROM THE AAS ANNUAL CONFERENCE