Report lauds suicide prevention program

  • Published
  • By G.W. Pomeroy
  • Air Force Surgeon General Public Affairs
The Air Force’s Suicide Prevention Program has been hailed as a “model program” in a landmark report released by the president's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health.

The 113-page report, titled “Achieving the Promise: Transforming Mental Health Care in America,” cites an “urgent need for action on suicide prevention" and termed the need for suicide prevention a “significant public health problem.”

The report states that the Air Force’s suicide prevention program “can be transferred to any community that has identified leaders and organization, especially other military services, large corporations, police forces, firefighters, schools and universities.”

“Through its pioneering program on suicide prevention, the U.S. Air Force works to reverse deep-seated attitudes in the military that seeking help should be avoided and is shameful,” according to the report.

“Suicide is, relatively speaking, a rare event. However, other adverse outcomes that share common underlying risk factors with suicide are not,” said Kerry L. Knox, an assistant professor in the Department of Community and Preventive Medicine at the University of Rochester (N.Y.) Medical School’s Center for the Study and Prevention of Suicide.

“Air Force leadership recognized this in 1995, at a time when there was little discussion of population-based efforts to reduce suicide,” said Knox, who is also the primary investigator on a study of the Air Force Suicide Prevention Program that is being funded by the National Institute of Mental Health.

“What is commendable is that Air Force leadership continues to endorse the belief that the overall mental health of its community is just as important as its physical well-being. This is at a time when the World Health Organization, among others, now recognizes violence, accidental death, and suicide as major public health problems.

“The Air Force Suicide Prevention Program stands as an unparalleled example of what changing a community’s attitudes and beliefs can accomplish.”

According to the report, the Air Force's program "helps the target audience -- in this case, Air Force personnel -- recognize that it takes courage to confront life’s stresses and that taking steps to do so is ‘career-enhancing.’”

The Air Force uses an integrated system of chaplains and professionals from mental health, family support, child and youth services, health and wellness centers and family advocacy. All of them work together and take responsibility for prevention. This community approach to suicide prevention launched to national prominence in 2001 when then-U.S. surgeon general Dr. David Satcher made the program a model for the nation and incorporated it into the National Suicide Prevention Strategy.

The report lauded the NSSP as "the first attempt in the United States to prevent suicide through such a coordinated approach," and urged swift implementation and enhancement of the NSSP "to serve as a blueprint for communities and all levels of government."

"This promising blueprint for change is poised to guide the nation toward a brighter future for suicide prevention," the report stated.

The commission noted that the biggest challenge for the Air Force is in "sustaining the enthusiasm by service providers as the program has become more established." Toward that end, the Air Force Medical Service has continually instituted innovative products for mental health professionals, commanders and the Air Force population in general, said officials.

So far in 2003, the AFMS introduced "The Air Force Guide for Managing Suicidal Behavior: Strategies, Resources and Tools" and the Air Force Suicide Prevention Program Web site as part of the service’s strategy to provide innovative tools to help prevent suicides in the Air Force.

The 88-page clinical guide does not represent a mandate or requirement. Rather, it is a set of recommendations that are intended to assist mental health professionals in assessing and managing suicidal behavior. The Web site -- which is dot-mil restricted -- features a wealth of information, including an overview of the Air Force Suicide Prevention Program; how to implement a local program; links to relevant Defense Department and Air Force policies, instructions and other publications; senior leader memos and links to other existing Air Force Suicide Prevention Program products.

“The Leaders’ Guide for Managing Personnel in Distress” is scheduled for release in December.

Suicide rates in the Air Force have declined throughout the last six years. From 1991 to 1996, the active-duty suicide rate was 14.1 per 100,000. From 1997 -- the year in which the suicide prevention program was fully implemented -- through 2002, the annual average was 9.1 per 100,000. The service’s suicide rate in 2002 was 8.3 per 100,000 people -- its second lowest in 20 years.

As of Aug. 6, there had been 21 suicides among active-duty airmen this year -- a rate of 9.3 per 100,000. No suicides were among active-duty airmen deployed in Operation Iraqi Freedom.