Challenge
Each year in the United States, more than 49,000 Americans lose their lives to suicide, while millions more attempt or think about suicide. These lives represent mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, spouses, partners, friends, and colleagues from every walk of life—regardless of gender, age, race, sexual orientation, or ethnicity.
Given the complexity of this issue, suicide prevention requires engagement and commitment from all sectors of society. Due to its expertise and thought leadership, EDC serves as the home for the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention (Action Alliance)—the nation’s public-private partnership for suicide prevention. Alongside its more than 250 partners, the Action Alliance works to advance the 2024 National Strategy for Suicide Prevention (National Strategy), which serves as the nation’s road map for reducing suicide rates and saving lives.
Key Activities
As the secretariat for the Action Alliance, EDC staff:
- Support implementation of the National Strategy by championing suicide prevention as a national priority, generating opportunities to implement key goals and objectives, and cultivating the resources needed to sustain progress
- Lead efforts with partners to advance five strategic priorities in our work to build, scale, and strengthen the national response to suicide: data surveillance, analytics, and research; progress and accountability; crisis care continuum; health care transformation; and messaging and communications
- Cultivate new partnerships with senior executives from business, government, and the nonprofit sector to leverage their influence and resources to strengthen national suicide prevention efforts
- Provide infrastructure support and coordination for all Action Alliance-led activities
- Connect influential communications leads from national partners to develop coordinated and consistent messages about suicide prevention through the Messaging Work Group
- Lead other initiatives activated by the Action Alliance, including Zero Suicide, Faith.Hope.Life., the Crisis Now model, and the Mental Health Storytelling Coalition.
Impact
- Steward of the 2024 National Strategy for Suicide Prevention and the Federal Action Plan
- Released resources to transform health care systems, including:
- Released resources to transform community-based suicide prevention, including:
- Released resources to change the conversation about suicide and suicide prevention, including:
- 988 Formative Research – For use by those in the suicide prevention field to make research-informed decisions about how to encourage help-seeking, including use and/or access to 988 for populations disproportionately impacted by suicide and their trusted messengers
- Framework for Successful Messaging – For individuals and organizations publicly messaging about suicide and suicide prevention
- 988 Messaging Framework – For state agencies, crisis centers, nonprofits, businesses, foundations and others messaging about 988
- National Recommendations for Depicting Suicide – For entertainment and media content creators
Learn More
PROJECT DIRECTOR
![Colleen Carr](https://www.edc.org/system/files/styles/media_thumbnail/private/staffimg/33643B6B0A7627C944D3BF06355076BB.jpg?itok=SndYH-lv)
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