Suicide Prevention

Our Position

To prevent suicide attempts effectively, we must address the underlying causes that motivate people to end their own lives. To state it simply, those who attempt suicide do so because they believe that it is better to end their life than to be alive. Because of this, preventing attempts at suicide is not only about erecting suicide barriers on bridges or advertising suicide hotlines near railroad tracks. Preventing attempts at suicide requires us to create a culture of caring and social inclusion that is felt by all Americans.

There are several known factors associated with high suicide rates. Among these are:

• Lack of sufficient daylight exposure
• Alcohol consumption
• Social alienation
• Extreme poverty
• Lack of social support systems

These factors can reasonably be tied to:

• Hormonal imbalances (e.g. serotonin), related to insufficient daylight exposure
• Using alcohol to avoid feeling unwanted emotions, leading to a buildup of emotional pain
• Emotional pain and lacking a sense of purpose, due to lack of social inclusion
• Lack of hope (despair), due to not being supported while experiencing poverty
• Inability to process emotions communally, due to insufficient social support

To create a culture of caring and social inclusion, our intention is to:

• Provide healthcare for all and promote physical wellness, addressing hormonal imbalances through lifestyle changes and light therapy
• Provide and promote education on emotional wellness, supporting people in learning how to handle their emotions, addressing the suppression of unwanted emotions
• Support social inclusion and the wellness of communities through public advertising as well as legal and regulatory changes in how communities are created and maintained, addressing social alienation
• Provide Universal Earned Income to end extreme poverty in America, addressing despair due to being inadequately supported financially
• Support communal re-identification with social reintegration through educational programs, public advertising, and regulatory changes that support the emotional needs of community members, addressing the lack of social support systems
• Create and maintain a real-time nationwide suicide tracking system to allow public health services to respond quickly to changing localized conditions that motivate suicidal behaviors.