Suicide Fatality Review: Targeted National Strategy to Prevent Suicides

The Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR) seeks funding to implement the Suicide Fatality Reviews: Targeted National Strategy to Prevent Suicides project. The project will
address the goals of improving outcomes (decreased risk of suicide) for justice system-involved individuals and law enforcement officers and preventing or responding to drug
overdoses and fatalities. To address these goals, IIR proposes to: establish and implement suicide fatality reviews (SFR) through the use of demonstration sites; identify prevention and intervention strategies to prevent suicide; translate existing overdose fatality review (OFR) tools and resources to use for SFRs; and develop national SFR guidance, tools, and TTA. Planned activities include accelerating justice through the creation of approaches and tools that build the capacity to gather and analyze data and information to understand key
decision points and levers for change; enhancing collaboration across criminal justice, behavioral health, and public health agencies to address barriers for persons in the criminal justice system with substance use disorders (SUDs) and/or mental health issues; addressing SUDs and substance use-related crimes; and improving outcomes for individuals who have been incarcerated and reducing recidivism.

IIR proposes to partner with existing state, urban, rural, and tribal OFRs as demonstration sites and with Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health as the researcher for the project. The expected outcomes from this project are establishing national SFR guidance and tools to prevent future suicides among law enforcement and individuals with SUDs, mental illness, and/or prior criminal justice involvement and to identify missed opportunities for prevention and intervention among those who died by suicide. The outcomes will benefit jurisdictions across the country in establishing and utilizing SFRs to prevent suicides.