Ramya Sundararaman, MD, MPH, Deborah M. Stone, MPH, MSW, and David Litts, OD. National Suicide Prevention Resource Center, Education Development Center, 55 Chapel Street, Newton, MA 02458, 6176182793, ramyasundaraman@yahoo.com

Suicide takes over 30,000 lives annually in the United States. In 1998, a national conference in Nevada resulted in the U.S. Surgeon General’s Call to Action for suicide prevention and creation of a National Strategy for Suicide Prevention (NSSP) in the United States. In the five years following this conference, many states created state plans for suicide prevention, based on individual state priorities. Implementing a comprehensive plan that uses a public health prevention model is considered most effective in preventing suicides.

This presentation reviews individual state plans for suicide prevention to evaluate plan development and then compares each plan to the NSSP to observe the extent of alignment between goals and objectives of individual states with those in NSSP. A survey tool, developed by the national Suicide Prevention Resource Center (SPRC) in collaboration with the National Center for Suicide Prevention Training (NCSPT), will be completed by at least three state planners from every state that has a suicide prevention state plan. The model used in each state’s plan will be considered in order to determine the presence of a public health approach to suicide prevention. In addition, the survey also assesses each state’s phase of implementation, public-private partnerships, and collaboration efforts.

Results of this survey will be collected and analyzed by SPRC and feedback provided to individual states to help them plan their next steps. Discussion will focus on establishing the progress made by each state using multiple criteria including state plan creation, comprehensiveness, implementation, evaluation, partnership development, and collaboration.

Learning Objectives:

• Consider the range of suicide prevention efforts achieved to date by individual states
• Discuss the progress made by each state using multiple criteria including state plan creation, comprehensiveness, implementation, evaluation, partnership development, and collaboration.

Keywords: Suicide, Coalition

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.