Public Health Approaches to Suicide Prevention: A Guide for Local Communities (en Inglés) - Keita Franklin

This book brings the latest research on suicide to practitioners on the front lines of a public health crisis, in a form they can act on. Its aim is to help them build protective factors in their communities and reinforce what is already known to prevent loss of life by suicide.

Theories of suicide have moved from a static medical model to a dynamic socioecological model situated within a public health framework. The volume is built on that shift. Effective prevention requires attention to individual, family, and community factors, and it requires effort from both the public and private sectors. A sole reliance on mental health treatment and hospital-based service delivery will not reach everyone who is struggling. The book therefore functions as a practical, how-to guide to preventing suicide in the natural living and working environments that lie beyond clinical settings.

Each sphere of the socioecological model is addressed including: economic supports, access to mental health care, coping and problem-solving skills, community connectedness, lethal means safety, safe messaging, risk identification, and postvention. Chapters are written by leading researchers and practitioners and present the current state of practice for each element. Because public health is not a single function or entity, the authors also show how these elements fit together into a coherent, comprehensive approach for field-based suicide prevention practitioners and their community partners. This framework treats suicide as a complex event and organizes intervention and prevention strategies around a community's capacity to implement them.

Public Health Approaches to Suicide Prevention is an authoritative and practical resource for community-based organizations and local helping professionals, including social workers and front-line staff in social services, employment, recreation, schools and after-school programs, youth and child care, and prevention-focused organizations. Government and state employees; faculty and students in public health, sociology, psychology, and social work; hospital staff; and professionals working to prevent mental health and substance use disorders will also find it useful.