June 2001 • Volume 7 • Number 6
'Suicide prevention is everybody's business'
Surgeon general announces national strategyBY CINDY McCANSE
Calling suicide "a national public health problem," U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher, M.D., Ph.D., a family physician, recently announced a national effort to prevent suicide.
Satcher emphasized the need to recruit a diverse blend of individuals and organizations to become actively involved in suicide prevention. Key to those efforts will be primary care physicians, nurses, mental health care providers, schoolteachers, clergy, staff at correctional facilities, and police and other emergency personnel, to name a few.
"We should make it clear that suicide prevention is everybody's business," Satcher said May 2 in Washington. "Suicide affects all demographic groups in America."
Statistics more than bear out his observations:
- More than 30,000 Americans each year take their own lives. That pans out to 86 persons every day -- one every 17 minutes.
- More teens and young adults die from suicide than from cancer, heart disease, AIDS, birth defects, stroke, pneumonia and influenza, and chronic lung disease combined.
- For every two victims of homicide in the United States, three people commit suicide.
Satcher announced the release of a "National Strategy for Suicide Prevention: Goals and Objectives for Action." To review components of the document, go to http://www.mentalhealth.org/suicideprevention and click on "Summary."
Surgeon General David Satcher, M.D., Ph.D.The report, which was jointly prepared by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institutes of Health, and Health Resources and Services Administration, represents the first installment in a national action plan to combat this eighth leading cause of death in the United States. Future installments will be released as they are completed. A publication outlining preferred approaches to media coverage of suicide-related events is expected to be issued later this year.
The agencies collaborated with advocacy and physician groups in developing the document. Sharon Sweede, M.D., of Asheville, N.C., a member of the AAFP Commission on Public Health, reviewed the report on behalf of the Academy.
"Several of the objectives in the plan specifically address primary care doctors," says Sweede. "It's going to be pretty difficult for this to be successful without our involvement."
That involvement, she adds, takes several forms: "We need to see that family physicians include screening for suicide risk as well as availability of lethal means in routine health visits. And they need to document that screening."
But beyond screening, Sweede notes, family physicians are a logical choice to manage patients with depression or other mental illness. "A very large part of it is going to be screening," she says, "but it's also the continuing care and follow-through on treatment."
Eleven goals are outlined in the report, and 68 quantifiable objectives will facilitate outcome measurement by local, state and national organizations involved in preventing suicide and suicide attempts.
The goals range from promoting public awareness of this health scourge to attacking the stigma associated with seeking mental health services.
Also included is training (for those likely to encounter persons at risk for suicide) to recognize the danger signs and know what resources are available to help.
Expanding and improving surveillance systems is another priority area, as is supporting research on suicide and suicide prevention.
FP Report is published by the AAFP News Department.
Copyright © 2001 by American Academy of Family Physicians.
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