Archives: Clinical Corner

This week kicks off Black, Indigenous, persons of color (BIPOC) Mental Health Month. What does your program have planned for this week to raise awareness of mental health disparity? As mental health advocates, we need to create actionable steps to raise awareness and reduce the chasm of care experienced by persons of color. This year’s theme for BIPOC MHM is Culture, Community, & Connection. According to Mental Health America, our lives are deeply intertwined with our environments, and these surroundings impact our mental health and overall wellness. BIPOC populations are faced with disproportionate amounts of historical trauma and displacement that can challenge their ability to thrive in their environments. However, culture, community, and connection are pillars that support and uplift BIPOC individuals in the face of oppression and systemic racism.

Here is the link to the BIPOC MHM toolkit for your use throughout the month.

As we look at the disproportionate effects of mental illness across varying populations the data is staggering. This week we will start with looking at mental health statistics for the African American community.

How Does Mental and Behavioral Health Affect African American Populations?

• In 2020, suicide was the third leading cause of death, respectively, for blacks or African Americans, ages 15 to 24.1
• The death rate from suicide for black or African American men was four times greater than for African American women, in 2018.
• The overall suicide rate for black or African Americans was 60 percent lower than that of the non-Hispanic white population, in 2018.
• Black females, grades 9-12, were 60 percent more likely to attempt suicide in 2019, as compared to non-Hispanic white females of the same age.
• Poverty level affects mental health status. Black or African Americans living below the poverty level, as compared to those over twice the poverty level, are twice as likely to report serious psychological distress.
• A report from the U.S. Surgeon General found that from 1980 – 1995, the suicide rate among African Americans ages 10 to 14 increased 233 percentage, as compared to 120 percent of non-Hispanic whites.

In the coming weeks I am going to share about behavioral health equity and actions we can take to work toward a world where all individuals, regardless of race, age, ethnicity, gender, disability, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, or geographical location, has access to high-quality and affordable healthcare services and support.

Today kicks off the last week of Suicide Prevention Month. Mental health is trending! Last week the US Preventative Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommended all adults under age 65 without a diagnosed mental health condition be screened for anxiety. This follows their 2016 recommendation to screen all adults for depression. USPSTF made these recommendations based on the net benefit to potential patients by early screening and detection of anxiety and depression. Initial screenings for anxiety and depression in primary care offices increase identification of mental health concerns which can subsequently lead to treatment for many undiagnosed individuals.

There is so much to discuss when it comes to suicide prevention and the importance of sharing risk factors and interventions. To conclude the Suicide Prevention Month notes, I am sharing identifying risk factors and immediate things you can do to help those in need.

Risk factors for increased suicide risk:

• Mental disorders, particularly mood disorders, schizophrenia, anxiety disorders, and certain personality disorders
• Alcohol and other substance use disorders
• Hopelessness
• Impulsive and/or aggressive tendencies
• History of trauma or abuse
• Major physical illnesses
• Previous suicide attempt(s)
• Family history of suicide
• Job or financial loss
• Loss of relationship(s)
• Easy access to lethal means
• Local clusters of suicide
• Lack of social support and sense of isolation
• Stigma associated with asking for help
• Lack of healthcare, especially mental health, and substance abuse treatment
• Cultural and religious beliefs, such as the belief that suicide is a noble resolution of a personal dilemma
• Exposure to others who have died by suicide (in real life or via the media and Internet)

Warning signs of increased imminent risk:

• Talking about wanting to die or to kill themselves
• Looking for a way to kill themselves, like searching online or buying a gun
• Talking about feeling hopeless or having no reason to live
• Talking about feeling trapped or in unbearable pain
• Talking about being a burden to others
• Increasing the use of alcohol or drugs
• Acting anxious or agitated; behaving recklessly
• Sleeping too little or too much
• Withdrawing or isolating themselves
• Showing rage or talking about seeking revenge
• Extreme mood swings

If you know someone experiencing thoughts of suicide or one of the above risk factors, follow these steps to help.

• Tune-In
  • Tuning in to the possibility of suicide can lead to help and safety rather than suicide. 
  • Pay attention and notice what you hear, sense, feel, see, and learn about.
  • Take the time to follow your instincts. 
  • Notice when someone needs help and focus your attention on whether their thoughts and experiences could be about suicide. 

• Ask About Suicide
  • People thinking about suicide may not know how to ask for help. 
  • Once you have “tuned-in” and believe they may be experiencing thoughts of suicide, Ask CLEARLY, DIRECTLY, and CALMLY. 
  • Example: “You seem to be overwhelmed, are you thinking about suicide?”
  • This question is clear and direct and cannot be mistaken for any other meaning. 
  • Remember:  It is important to ASK about suicide in a way that is non-judgmental.  Demonstrate that you want to hear the answer. 
  • Asking about suicide gives the person with thoughts of suicide permission to talk about their thoughts.  It is possible that up until now, this person may have felt they could not talk about the pain they were in. 

• State that Suicide is Serious
  • Let the person know that you believe that suicidal thoughts are serious. 
  • Example: “You are thinking about suicide, that is serious.  Tell me more.  What happened?  When did this start.”
  • Example: “Thank you for telling me that you are thinking about suicide.  Having these thoughts is serious.  When did you begin thinking about suicide?  Let’s talk about it.”
  • After asking about suicide, you may learn how suicidal thoughts came to be on their mind.  You may also identify how or when they thought about suicide. 
  • Repeat back to them all you have heard them say about suicide. 
  • Stress the importance of connecting to help to be safe from suicide is important.

• Connect
  • Connect the person to resources who possess the skills to support safety.
  • Make the connection as soon as possible. Do not put this off!
  • Do not leave a person with suicidal thoughts alone.
  • Getting help to ensure their safety demonstrates how seriously you take thoughts of suicide. 
  • Talk about and agree on a connection to a resource who supports safety from suicide.
  • It is important to ask if there has already been any harmful suicide action taken.  If there were pills taken or any injury inflicted, contact emergency medical services or the police for immediate help. 

These four steps won’t replace treatment, but they will increase the chance the person will get help.

The work that each of you has done to reduce stigma, increase treatment visibility, and provide valuable information to your communities has been outstanding! I appreciate all you do, and the world is a better place for it!

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released data on the first month of the Suicide and Crisis Hotline’s transition to the phone number of “988.”  The data showed a 45% increase in call volume and a reduction in call wait times from the previous year. This equates to an increase of 152,000 more calls or contacts than in August of 2021. The hotline also reduced the amount of time people are waiting for someone to connect from 2.5 minutes to 42 seconds. 

With the World Health Organization predicting the continued rise of death by suicide over the next decade, the improved access to support for those at suicide risk is significant. Better access to a call center and reduced wait times translates into more individuals receiving help and a reduction in suicide risk. 

To prevent death by suicide, we need to understand the complex risk factors that increase a person’s risk for attempting suicide. One of the most recognized indicators of suicide risk is psychache.  Suicidologist Edwin Shneidman defines the term as unbearable psychological pain-hurt, anguish, soreness, and aching. 

According to Shneidman, suicide is best understood as moving toward the complete stopping of one’s consciousness and unendurable pain as the solution to life’s painful and pressing problems. “Pain is the core of suicide. Suicide is an exclusively human response to extreme psychological pain.” 

As seen in Figure 1, the path from psychache to death by suicide has areas where we can intervene, provide support, and hopefully break this pathway of lethality.

Following psychache, other psychological factors like personality traits, emotional characteristics, and dysregulation play a role with emerging importance to decision-making deficit among suicidal individuals. 

Next week, we will discuss interpersonal factors and their role as a psychological factor for suicide risk. 

Thank you for all that you are doing to intervene and spread awareness!

Death by suicide is a worldwide health epidemic. Suicidal ideation and death by suicide are incredibly complex with multiple factors playing a part. These factors include things like brain chemistry, trauma history, social and cultural environment, and current stressors. There is still much unknown about death by suicide. 

Recent data released by the CDC was surprising. It showed a 3% reduction in death by suicide in 2020 despite an increase in reported depression and anxiety during the pandemic. There was anticipation that death by suicide could potentially see an increase as well, however, thankfully that did not occur. The “why” behind the numbers is difficult to deduce and further emphasizes the complexities around death by suicide. Let us look at the data offered by the CDC.

Suicide Mortality in the US from 2000-2020

• After increasing from 2000 through 2018, the age-adjusted suicide rate declined from 2018 (14.2 per 100,000) to 2020 (13.5).
• Suicide rates for females in all age groups over age 25 showed recent declines, while rates for those aged 10–14 and 15–24 have increased.
• Between 2018 and 2020, suicide rates decreased in males aged 45–64 and 65–74.
• For females in 2020, the rate of firearm-related suicide (1.8) was higher than rates of suicide by poisoning (1.5) and suffocation (1.7).
• For males in 2020, the leading means of suicide was firearm (12.5), at a rate twice that of suffocation (6.1), the second leading means.

This graphic from the CDC (source) on death by suicide by age range for 2019 and 2020 shows that while it is wonderful that we see a 3% overall decline the number of deaths by suicide is still high and did increase for some age groups.

Next week, we will discuss the different influential facets that can contribute to suicidal ideation and death by suicide. Understanding these factors can help us when making clinical decisions regarding a person’s suicide risk.

Today kicks off the first full week of Suicide Prevention Month. In this month, when we help so many, we cannot lose focus on those who lost their lives before they could get the help they needed. Sobering data was released this year by the Trust for America’s Health Foundation on death by suicide, drug, and alcohol abuse. In 2020, 186,763 lives were lost to suicide, drug, and alcohol abuse, an increase of 20% from 2019.

Unfortunately, unlike a physical illness where you can perform an x-ray to determine if your arm is broken, there is no one way to ensure we have identified someone at risk for suicide. Arming ourselves with the most up-to-date evidence on how best to identify warning signs and intervene is imperative in the effort to stop suicides in our nation.

In 2011, after realizing that only two interventions (brief intervention and contact) had been empirically proven to prevent suicide and only one modality of therapy (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy/DBT) had been shown to prevent suicide in more than one trial, researchers wanted to push to learn more about identifying an individual at risk for suicide. They developed the Interpersonal Theory of Suicide. The theory consists of three parts:

• Thwarted belongingness: feeling like one does not belong, experiencing chronic loneliness, and the lack of reciprocally caring relationships
• Perceived burdensomeness: the perception, not the reality, that one is a burden and others would be better off without them
• Acquired capability to enact lethal self-harm: fearlessness about dying and pain tolerance

The three parts can be seen more visually in this diagram.

These feelings can be seen across all age ranges, but with the highest death by suicide rate in our nation being the elderly, you can see how some of the life changes that occur with aging could lead to older adults experiencing an increase in these feelings.

The National Council on Aging recently shared warning signs for increased risk of suicidal thoughts in the elderly:

• Social isolation and loneliness (e.g., living alone, being a widow/widower, low social support)
• Physical and mental health problems
• Chronic pain
• Stressful life events (e.g., financial discord, death/divorce)
• Need for home-based care, loss of functioning with activities of daily living (ADL)

In the coming weeks, we will discuss other at-risk populations and more evidence on how to best identify suicide risk and provide interventions. I am looking forward to seeing the amazing work you are doing in your communities and hearing your inspiring stories!

As we enter the last week of BIPOC Mental Health Month, we know that our work reducing healthcare disparities in the mental health space will not be over when July ends. In 1999 and 2001, the US Surgeon General put out two reports that highlighted mental health disparities: Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General and Mental Health, Culture, Race and Ethnicity.

According to these reports:

• Racial and ethnic minorities have less access to mental health services than whites, are less likely to receive needed care, and are more likely to receive poor quality care when treated.
• Minorities in the United States are more likely than whites to delay or fail to seek mental health treatment.
• After entering care, minority patients are less likely than Whites to receive the best available treatments for depression and anxiety.
• African Americans are more likely than Whites to terminate treatment prematurely.
• Among adults with a diagnosis-based need for mental health or substance abuse care, 37.6% of Whites, but only 22.4% of Latinos and 25.0% of African Americans, receive treatment.

While we have made some headway in the past 20 years, the statistics I have shared over the past few weeks show that much more work is needed. McGuire and Miranda shared the following on how to reduce mental health disparity in their work Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Mental Health Care: Evidence and Policy Implications:

Mental health disparities are rooted almost entirely in mental healthcare disparities; policy efforts should focus on improving access to and quality of mental healthcare for diverse Americans. Mostly, these policy efforts do not reflect exceptionalism for mental healthcare, apart from general healthcare. Specifically, policies that would result in universal coverage for mental health care would significantly improve access for ethnic minorities. Similarly, improving the quality of mental health care treatments would likely improve, but not eliminate, mental health care disparities. These quality improvement efforts would need to include screening to increase appropriate identification of disorders for minorities, as well as modest accommodations for minorities (providing language-appropriate educational and treatment materials and culturally sensitive training for providers). Of particular importance for eliminating mental health disparities for minorities, federal policies should provide the outreach and education support necessary to train a diverse workforce to meet the mental health needs of our nation.

We might not individually be responsible for national policy development. Still, we can influence our host locations’ policies, create systems built around inclusion, and continue to work to eliminate disparities within our control as we learn about them. We can advocate to local and national officials that mental healthcare for all persons is integral to healthcare. We can take steps to create change, and I hope we are all committed to taking them.

Thank you for all you have done to raise awareness, reduce stigma, and decrease healthcare disparity this month!

Did you know that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health (OMH) exists with the mission to improve the health of racial and ethnic minority populations through the development of health policies and programs to help eliminate health disparities? OMH was founded in 1986 and continues today. OMH has three overarching programmatic priorities:

1. Supporting states, territories, and tribes in identifying and sustaining health equity-promoting policies, programs, and practices
2. Expanding the utilization of community health workers to address health and social service needs within communities of color
3. Strengthening cultural competence among healthcare providers throughout the country

The OMH also publishes data annually to highlight health disparities that exist and/or are being reduced. Let’s look at the current data regarding Hispanic persons. This ethnic group includes any person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin, regardless of race. According to the 2019 U.S. Census Bureau population estimate, 60.5 million Hispanics live in the United States. This group represents 18.4 percent of the U.S. total population. It is significant to note that Hispanics have the highest uninsured rates of any racial or ethnic group within the United States. In 2019, the Census Bureau reported that 50.1 percent of Hispanics had private insurance coverage compared to 74.7 percent of non-Hispanic whites.

• The death rate from suicide for Hispanic men was four times the rate for Hispanic women in 2018.
• However, the suicide rate for Hispanics is less than half that of the non-Hispanic white population.
• In 2019, suicide was the second leading cause of death for Hispanics ages 15 to 34.1.
• Suicide attempts for Hispanic girls, grades 9-12, were 30 percent higher than for non-Hispanic white girls in the same age group in 2019.
• In 2018, Hispanics were 50 percent less likely to have received mental health treatment than non-Hispanic whites.
• Poverty level affects mental health status. Compared to Hispanics over twice the poverty level, Hispanics living below the poverty level are twice as likely to report serious psychological distress.

OMH also has developed the National Standards for Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services in Health and Health Care. This guide can be accessed here to learn more about the proposed steps to decrease BIPOC health disparities in the mental health arena.

There is a free training tomorrow called Racism and our Families’ Health: Connecting the Dots. You can register here.

Thank you for all you do to reach all people in need and provide culturally competent care!

As mental health care providers, we can take steps to decrease the mental health care disparities experienced by diverse population groups. We have actions that we can take to work toward healthcare equality for all. The American Psychiatric Association (APA) has a wonderful resource that provides concrete steps to assist in reducing mental health inequities and ways to get involved on national and local levels. You can learn more about advocating, connecting, and educating at the APA website.

It is important to understand the disparities within the mental health space. According to the APA:

• Ethnic/racial minorities often bear a disproportionately high burden of disability resulting from mental disorders.
• Although rates of depression are lower in blacks (24.6%) and Hispanics (19.6%) than in whites (34.7%), depression in blacks and Hispanics is likely to be more persistent.
• People who identify as being of two or more races (24.9%) are most likely to report any mental illness within the past year than any other race/ethnic group, followed by American Indian/Alaska Natives (22.7%), white (19%), and black (16.8%).
• American Indians/Alaskan Natives report higher rates of posttraumatic stress disorder and alcohol dependence than any other ethnic/racial group.
• White Americans are more likely to die by suicide than people of other ethnic/racial groups.
• Mental health problems are common among people in the criminal justice system, which disproportionately represent racial/ethnic minorities.
• Approximately 50% to 75% of youth in the juvenile justice system meet the criteria for a mental health disorder.
• Racial/ethnic minority youth with behavioral health issues are more readily referred to the juvenile justice system than to specialty primary care compared with white youth.
• Minorities are also more likely to end up in the juvenile justice system due to harsh disciplinary suspension and school expulsion practices.
• Lack of cultural understanding by health care providers may contribute to underdiagnosis and/or misdiagnosis of mental illness in people from racially/ethnically diverse populations.
• Factors that contribute to these kinds of misdiagnoses include language differences between patient and provider, the stigma of mental illness among minority groups, and cultural presentation of symptoms.

The inequities being experienced in the mental health space according to the APA:

• People from racial/ethnic minority groups are less likely to receive mental health care. For example, in 2015, 48% of whites received mental health services among adults with any mental illness, compared with 31% of blacks and Hispanics and 22% of Asians.
• There are differences in the types of services (outpatient, prescription, inpatient) used more frequently by people of different ethnic/racial groups.
• Adults identifying as two or more races, whites, and American Indian/Alaska Natives were more likely to receive outpatient mental health services and more likely to use prescription psychiatric medication than other racial/ethnic groups.
• Inpatient mental health services were used more frequently by black adults and those reporting two or more races.
• Asians are less likely to use mental health services than any other race/ ethnic group.
• Among all racial/ethnic groups, except American Indian/Alaska Native, women are much more likely to receive mental health services than men.

These statistics are sobering, but talking about them and working toward changing them is a step toward a brighter future for our patients.

Thanks for all you do to help so many!

This week kicks off Black, Indigenous, Persons of Color (BIPOC) Mental Health Month. What has your program planned for this week to raise awareness of mental health disparity? As mental health advocates, we need to create actionable steps to raise awareness and reduce the chasm of care experienced by persons of color.

This week let’s start by looking at some statistics for Black or African Americans:

• In 2019, death by suicide was the second leading cause of death for blacks or African Americans ages 15 to 24.1.
• The death rate from suicide for black or African American men was four times greater than for African American women in 2018.
• The suicide rate for black or African Americans was 60 percent lower than that of the non-Hispanic white population in 2018.
• Black females, grades 9-12, were 60 percent more likely to attempt suicide in 2019 than non-Hispanic white females of the same age.
• Poverty level affects mental health status. Black or African Americans living below the poverty level are twice as likely to report serious psychological distress compared to those over twice the poverty level.
• A report from the U.S. Surgeon General found that from 1980 – 1995, the suicide rate among African Americans ages 10 to 14 increased by 233 percent, compared to 120 percent of non-Hispanic whites.

In addition to these statistics, this week’s news is spotlighting the community trauma experienced in the face of racial inequities. According to Mental Health America, racial trauma, or race-based traumatic stress (RBTS), refers to the mental and emotional injury caused by encounters with racial bias and ethnic discrimination, racism, and hate crimes. Any individual that has experienced an emotionally painful, sudden, and uncontrollable racist encounter is at risk of suffering from a race-based traumatic stress injury.

Here are some examples of individual and systemic racism:

Examples of Individual Racism:

• Following the COVID-19 outbreak in the U.S., there were nearly 1,500 reported incidents of anti-Asian racism in just one month. Reports included physical and verbal attacks and reports of anti-Asian discrimination in private businesses.
• In 2018, 38 percent of Latinx people were verbally attacked for speaking Spanish, were told to “go back to their countries,” called a racial slur, and/or treated unfairly by others.
• Over the course of one year, Twitter saw 4.2 million anti-Semitic tweets in just the English language alone. These tweets included anti-Semitic stereotypes, promoting anti-Semitic personality or media, symbols, slurs, or anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, including Holocaust denial.

Examples of Systemic Racism:

• Black people make up 12 percent of the country’s population but make up around 33 percent of the total prison population. This overrepresentation reflects racist arrests and policing as well as racist sentencing practices in the criminal justice system. 
• Previous and current racial displacement, exclusion, and segregation policies have left all BIPOC less likely than whites to own their homes regardless of their level of education, income, location, marital status, and age.
• The erasure of Asian Pacific Islanders (APIs) in the “Asian or Pacific Islander” category by U.S. Census data severely restricts access to opportunities in these communities by concealing the unique barriers faced by APIs that are not faced by East or South Asian communities. 
• Historical occupation segregation has made Black people less likely than Whites to hold jobs offering retirement savings prioritized by the U.S. tax code. This helps create a persistent wealth gap between White and Black communities where the median savings of blacks are, on average, just 21.4 percent of the median savings of whites.
• Lack of cultural competency in therapy training, financial incentives, and geographical isolation have created barriers to providing appropriate mental health resources in Native American communities. Rates of suicide in these communities are 3.5x higher than in racial/ethnic groups with the lowest rates of suicide.

As healthcare providers and mental health advocates, how can we help? Here is a resource to learn more and learn ways to work toward ending mental health care disparity.

We are entering the last full week of Mental Health Month. Time to dig deep to reach as many people as possible in the home stretch! For the last few weeks, we have been discussing statistics around mental illness. The spectrum of mental illness can have devastating consequences for those struggling with one. People struggling with mental illness can have home and food insecurity, lack of access to needed resources, and often find themselves moving between the health care system and judicial system. According to prisonpolicy.org, of people who have been jailed more than 3 times in the past 12 months 27% experience moderate or severe mental illness. Along with some of these struggles, suicide risk is a concern we have for any patient we serve.

The Kaiser Foundation recently released the 2020 data for suicide rates by state. Wyoming came in highest with 30.5 suicide deaths per 100,000 people and the District of Columbia came in with the least at 5.4 suicide deaths per 100,000 people. The national average rate was 13.5 per 100,000 people. With our focus on suicide prevention for so many, the words we choose when speaking to the public are so important. The Suicide Prevention Center has developed important, research-based, guidelines for how to prevent messaging to the public around suicide that can be inflammatory and lead to increased suicide attempts. We should attempt to prevent the following:

• Don’t show or describe suicide methods or locations.
  • Pictures or detailed descriptions of how or where a person died by suicide can encourage imitation or serve as a “how-to” guide.

• Don’t include personal details of people who have died by suicide.
  • Vulnerable individuals may identify with the personal or situational details of someone who died by suicide, encouraging them to end their own lives.

• Don’t glorify or romanticize suicide.
  • Portraying suicide as a heroic, romantic, or honorable act may encourage vulnerable people to view it more positively or lead them to desire the positive attention garnered by someone who has died by suicide.

• Don’t portray suicidal behavior as more common than it is or as a typical way of coping with adversity.
  • While we don’t want to minimize the magnitude of the suicide problem, we also don’t want to imply that suicidal behavior is what most people do in a given circumstance. The vast majority of people who face adversity, mental illness, and other challenges—even those in high-risk groups—do not die by suicide, but instead find support, treatment, or other ways to cope.

• Don’t use data or language that suggests suicide is inevitable or unsolvable.
  • Describing suicide as an “epidemic,” using terms like “bullycide,” or providing extensive statistics about suicide without solutions or action steps are examples of messaging that can make suicide seem too overwhelming to address. These practices may also contribute to an overall negative narrative about suicide by implying that nothing can be done about it.

• Don’t oversimplify causes. Suicides result from a complex interplay of factors. Therefore:
  • Avoid attributing suicide to a single cause or circumstance (e.g., job loss, break-up, bullying, high stress, or being a military veteran, gay youth, or Native American). Presenting suicide as an understandable or inevitable response to a difficult situation or membership in a group can create a harmful “social script” that discourages other ways of coping.
  • Avoid portraying suicide as having no cause. Describing suicidal behavior as the inexplicable act of an otherwise healthy or high-achieving person may encourage identification with the person who died and convey that suicide can’t be prevented. It’s also a missed opportunity to educate the public about warning signs and how to respond to them.
  • Don’t reinforce negative stereotypes, myths, or stigma related to mental illnesses or suicidal persons.
  • This may shift beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors in the wrong direction.

Discussing suicide prevention is obviously important, but how we convey the message is equally so. How can we speak about suicide in a way that is safe and empowers those thinking of suicide to have options? The Suicide Prevention Center’s research shows the following:

• Screen content before sharing it
• Spread the word about safety
• Be consistent
• Increase safety by conveying a Positive Narrative
• Be mindful of safety when sharing stories about individual suicide attempts or deaths with the public
• Make sure data — if used — are strategic, safe, and prevention-focused
• Convey the complex causality of suicide
• Highlight solutions to stigma, rather than the problem of stigma
• Use non-stigmatizing language

Another way to help is on the horizon. It is wonderful that the new Suicide and Crisis Line is going live on July 16^th, 2022. Once live, you will be able to dial 988 on your phone and receive help or ask for help for a loved one. According to SAMSHA, the 988 line provides a direct connection to compassionate, accessible care and support for anyone experiencing mental health-related distress — whether that is thoughts of suicide, mental health or substance use crisis, or any other kind of emotional distress. People can also dial 988 if they are worried about a loved one who may need crisis support. For more details and to download the 988 toolkit click here.

The HRSA also launched a new hotline for maternal mental health this month. This line offers 24/7 counselors who can support pregnant or new moms. They can call 1-833-9-HELP4MOMS at any time to have immediate access to help in over 60 languages. To learn more, click here.

Thank you for all you have done this month. Let’s double down our efforts and make this last week count!