The New York State Office of Mental Health recently announced the release of a plan for suicide prevention, aimed at reducing New York State’s suicide rate.
To guide suicide prevention statewide, 1,700 Too Many: New York State’s Suicide Prevention Plan aims to empower communities, health care professionals and researchers with the tools they need to decrease the number of deaths by suicide.
1,700 Too Many was developed after New York State was chosen to receive a grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to integrate suicide prevention into health care settings and provide prevention-specific training to health care providers. New York is one of only four states to receive such funding. The plan is the centerpiece of the inaugural New York State Suicide Prevention Conference occurring this week in Albany.
The program uses a three-tiered strategy that includes integrating suicide prevention into health and behavioral health settings, coordinated community suicide prevention and data-informed suicide prevention.
According to the state health department, the rate of suicide was highest in 2012 at 8.4 deaths per 100,000 residents.