Real-time suicide surveillance supporting policy and practice

R Benson; C Brunsdon; J Rigby; P Corcoran; M Ryan; E Cassidy; P Dodd; D Hennebry; E Arensman

doi:10.1017/gmh.2022.42

Real-time suicide surveillance supporting policy and practice

Glob Ment Health (Camb). 2022 Aug 12:9:384-388. doi: 10.1017/gmh.2022.42. eCollection 2022.

Authors

R Benson^{1

2}, C Brunsdon³, J Rigby³, P Corcoran², M Ryan⁴, E Cassidy⁵, P Dodd⁶, D Hennebry⁴, E Arensman^{1

2

7}

Affiliations

¹ School of Public Health, College of Medicine and Health, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland.
² National Suicide Research Foundation, WHO Collaborating Centre for Surveillance and Research in Suicide Prevention, Cork, Ireland.
³ National Centre for Geocomputation, National University of Ireland Maynooth, Maynooth, Ireland.
⁴ Cork Kerry Community Health Services, Health Service Executive, Cork, Ireland.
⁵ Department of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioural Science, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland.
⁶ National Office for Suicide Prevention, Health Service Executive, Dublin, Ireland.
⁷ Australian Institute for Suicide Research and Prevention, School of Applied Psychology, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia.

Abstract

Suicide mortality rates are a strong indicator of population mental-health and can be used to determine the efficacy of prevention measures. Monitoring suicide mortality rates in real-time provides an evidence-base to inform targeted interventions in a timely manner and accelerate suicide prevention responses. This paper outlines the importance of real-time suicide surveillance in the context of policy and practice, with a particular focus on public health and humanitarian crises.

Keywords: climate change; crisis response; humanitarian crises; public health emergencies; real-time suicide surveillance.