Identifying the causes, why did it happen?
There's much research that has tried to look at
the issues regarding various aspects of suicidal behavior.
One of the ways is looking at the social ecological model.
What that does is it tries to look at individual level factors,
factors that effect the family and the peer level.
The other factors that look at the community level.
And then others that look at the societal level.
The individual level might be things like age, like sex, like mental illness.
At the family and
peer level it may be exposure to violence or previous victimization.
Or history of violence in the family.
Whether that's interpersonal violence, assault related or self-inflicted violence
that others in the family have been victims of suicidal behavior.
At the community level, it may be things like looking at spirituality,
which is actually a protective factor.
Or aspects like social isolation and social social network and social support.
Social isolation being the risk factor.
Social support being the protective factor.
And then at the societal level, it may be inappropriate access to lethal means.
Things like the economy have been demonstrated to play a role in
suicidal behavior along with aspects like geography and culture.
The next aspect of the public health approach is developing and
evaluating programs and policies.
What works and what doesn't, and the various schemes for
trying to take a look at applying prevention practice to suicidal behavior.
As you see across the, the top row,
universal programs that try to do a program within the entire population.
Those might be things that are done across a whole community, across a whole school.
One aspect might be restricting access to lethal means.
And then second is selective interventions that look at at-risk populations.
Things like gatekeeper programs in which you try to train people to be on
the lookout for those that might be at-risk for suicidal behavior.
And then an example in the indicated type of strategy are those that are high-risk
individuals in which you are treating those that have exhibited a risk factor.
So, for instance, maybe those that have a previous suicide attempt, that you try to
prevent them from repeating that attempt or dying as a result of suicide.