Research: A Key to Prevention

Advocacy Forum June 22, 2015

AFSP’s Vision, Position and Bold Goal

Vision: A world without suicide

Position: Leading the fight to prevent suicide

Bold Goal: To reduce the suicide rate in the U.S.

20% by 2025

AFSP’s Comprehensive Approach

• Funds scientific research• Offers educational programs for professionals • Educates the public about causes, prevention • Promotes policies and legislation • Provides support, information, opportunities

for involvement for those bereaved by suicide, people at risk and their families

Research Informs Our Work

Investing in Science“There is every reason to expect that a national consensus to declare war on suicide and to fund

research and prevention at a level commensurate with the severity of the problem will be successful,

and will lead to highly significant discoveries as have the wars on cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and

AIDS.”

– Institute of Medicine, Reducing Suicide: A National Imperative (2002)

AFSP’s Research Investment

• AFSP was founded by researchers and families that lost love ones

• Goal was to create a sustainable private source of support for research into suicide

• The leading private funder of suicide research• 120 funded studies over 5 years, 25% of all

studies• Funding 30 new scientific studies per year• Over $9 million in current research• Focus Grants, larger studies, focus on priority

gap(s)

Our Investment is Increasing

Action Alliance Research Task Force: Prioritized Agenda

• Consensus document on research priorities• Developed with stakeholder, researcher input• The “agenda“ has been used by AFSP to raise

private support for research, determine our funding priorities, advocate for federal research dollars

The Prioritized Agenda

• Research objectives cover 6 key questions:–Why do people become suicidal?– How can we better detect/predict risk?–What interventions are effective, what prevents

someone from engaging in suicidal behavior?–What services are most effective for treating the

suicidal person and preventing suicidal behavior?–What other types of interventions (outside health

care settings) reduce suicide risk?–What research infrastructure is needed?

What Can Be Done?• Federal investment in research needs to increase

in order to reduce suicide in America• The Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act,

H.R. 2646 is a start• It authorizes $40 million a year for 5 years to NIMH

for “research on the determinants of self and other directed violence, including studies directed at reducing self-harm, suicide, interpersonal violence”

YOUR QUESTIONS ?