Both the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WHO) and In­ter­na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion for Sui­cide Pre­ven­tion (IASP) ad­vo­cate con­tin­u­ous­ly for the re­duc­tion of the glob­al sui­cide rate. This ad­vo­ca­cy is in keep­ing with the Unit­ed Na­tions Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals (SDGs) and the WHO Com­pre­hen­sive Men­tal Health Ac­tion Plan, which tar­get a one-third re­duc­tion in the glob­al sui­cide rate by 2030.

The re­views say, how­ev­er, that sui­cide rates are in­creas­ing in the re­gion of the Amer­i­c­as. It is the on­ly WHO re­gion ex­pe­ri­enc­ing this rise in which “young peo­ple are es­pe­cial­ly vul­ner­a­ble, with rates of sui­cide in­creas­ing among males in their 20s and pre­sen­ta­tions of self-harm high­ly preva­lent among young fe­males,” ac­cord­ing to the WHO.

One in every 100 deaths glob­al­ly is by sui­cide. Each year more than 720,000 peo­ple take their own life. This is equiv­a­lent to one per­son tak­ing their own life every 40 sec­onds (WHO).

Take a minute and process this.

Be­cause sui­cide is pre­ventable, such a fig­ure and the sta­tis­tics for our re­gion may point to the fact that the work and in­vest­ments need­ed to lim­it deaths by sui­cide re­main in­suf­fi­cient.

World Sui­cide Pre­ven­tion Day, ob­served next Wednes­day (Sep­tem­ber 10) is un­der the tri­en­ni­al theme “Chang­ing the Nar­ra­tive on Sui­cide” (2024–2026). This theme prompts us to take ac­tion to re­duce stig­ma, chal­lenge harm­ful myths, and fos­ter open, com­pas­sion­ate con­ver­sa­tions about sui­cide.

Ac­cord­ing to IASP pres­i­dent Prof Jo Robin­son, “Sui­cide pre­ven­tion is a shared com­mit­ment that unites us across bor­ders, cul­tures, and com­mu­ni­ties.”

She en­cour­ages us on the jour­ney of chang­ing the nar­ra­tive to “en­sure our mes­sage of hope and un­der­stand­ing reach­es every­one – in every cor­ner of the world.”

To be clear, sui­cide is not a men­tal health con­di­tion. It may be that some peo­ple with men­tal health con­di­tions find them­selves at greater risk of sui­cide. It may al­so be posit­ed that sui­cide comes at a peak point of men­tal dis­tress, as peo­ple man­age fall­out from stress­ful life events such as “loss of liveli­hood, work or aca­d­e­m­ic pres­sure, re­la­tion­ship break­downs, dis­crim­i­na­tion and oth­er life crises.”

Sui­cide is as­so­ci­at­ed with “mul­ti­ple, com­plex and in­ter­sect­ing so­cial, eco­nom­ic, cul­tur­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal fac­tors and chal­lenges, in­clud­ing the de­nial of ba­sic hu­man rights and ac­cess to re­sources,” (IASP) as well as these stress­ful life events.

Chang­ing the nar­ra­tive on sui­cide is about “trans­form­ing si­lence, stig­ma, and mis­un­der­stand­ing in­to open­ness, em­pa­thy, and sup­port.”

Every­one has a role to play, says IASP.

“From in­di­vid­u­als check­ing in with loved ones, to com­mu­ni­ties cre­at­ing safe spaces, to gov­ern­ments en­act­ing poli­cies and al­lo­cat­ing re­sources.”

The idea is that to­geth­er, work­ing on many lev­els, we can change the nar­ra­tive and “work to­wards a world where sui­cide is pre­vent­ed, and every life is val­ued.”

The or­gan­i­sa­tion en­cour­ages us glob­al­ly, at all lev­els, to act with aware­ness and un­der­stand­ing, hav­ing non-judge­men­tal con­ver­sa­tions, talk­ing open­ly and com­pas­sion­ate­ly about sui­cide, chal­leng­ing myths and break­ing down stig­ma.

Pub­lic di­a­logue and pri­vate con­ver­sa­tions be­tween in­di­vid­u­als, friends, fam­i­ly mem­bers, and com­mu­ni­ties are nec­es­sary for the cam­paign. IASP al­so en­cour­ages tak­ing part in train­ing, shar­ing sto­ries, and check­ing in with loved ones (www.iasp.in­fo).

Sui­cide is a dif­fi­cult top­ic. And while the stig­ma is per­va­sive, there are fun­da­men­tals to pre­ven­tion to which we all can sub­scribe.

Here are some point­ers from The Amer­i­can As­so­ci­a­tion of Sui­ci­dol­o­gy:

1. Ed­u­cate your­self: Fa­mil­iarise your­self with the red flags that com­mon­ly pre­cede sui­cide at­tempts (such as de­pres­sion, dra­mat­ic changes in mood or be­hav­iour, and pre­oc­cu­pa­tion with death). Recog­nise when some­one is sui­ci­dal. Most peo­ple who die by sui­cide show warn­ing signs ahead of an at­tempt.

2. Ask: Do not be afraid to ask some­one if they are con­sid­er­ing sui­cide. There is a com­mon mis­con­cep­tion that talk­ing about sui­cide might make some­one more like­ly to con­sid­er or at­tempt it, which can make peo­ple hes­i­tant to bring it up.

The key is to ap­proach the con­ver­sa­tion from a place of care and com­pas­sion, to lis­ten with­out judge­ment, and to of­fer help and sup­port. If you are wrong, the worst thing that hap­pens is that you have an awk­ward con­ver­sa­tion, but if you are right, you could save some­one’s life.

3. Fight stig­ma: Nor­malise con­ver­sa­tions about sui­cide and men­tal health. Stig­ma makes it hard­er for peo­ple who are feel­ing sui­ci­dal to speak out and can al­so make the griev­ing process more dif­fi­cult for the loved ones of those who have died by sui­cide.

4. Know what to do in cri­sis: If some­one is ac­tive­ly hav­ing a men­tal health cri­sis, or you be­lieve them to be in dan­ger of a sui­cide at­tempt, first, for your own safe­ty, do not try to in­ter­vene if you feel your own well-be­ing may be in dan­ger. If you can, stay with the per­son and try to keep them calm.

Try to re­move any weapons, dan­ger­ous items, or sub­stances, such as guns, knives, drugs/al­co­hol, car keys, or med­ica­tion. Call (or en­cour­age the per­son to call) a cri­sis hot­line or take them to the clos­est emer­gency room, if pos­si­ble.