Ten years ago the International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP), in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO), initiated and organized the first World Suicide Prevention Day. Celebrated on the 10th of September each year, this day is devoted to raising awareness among the scientific community and the general population that suicide is preventable. On this 10th anniversary of World Suicide Prevention Day: ten years of research, ten years of prevention, ten years of education and dissemination of information, we aim to maximally disseminate evidence-based findings that lives in the balance can be moved toward lives saved and redirected. The efforts of this decade are founded on research evidence that, indeed, we can prevent suicide. To increase the reach of this research evidence and yet better accomplish prevention activities, we must reduce the stigma and silence that surrounds suicide, hence this public health awareness and education campaign.
Suicide is caused by a wide array of interacting factors, from socio-cultural, to psychosocial, to biological. In many instances it has taken centuries of research and prevention effort to eradicate diseases e.g. smallpox, caused by single organisms; it may take millennia to similarly reach a goal of no suicides. That effort has been well begun and this volume is but one small, but essential, step to further disseminate knowledge along the path before us.
Lanny Berman, Ph.D., ABPP
Executive Director, American Association of Suicidology
President, International Association for Suicide Prevention
In recognition of World Suicide Prevention Day, Wiley Blackwell is offering complimentary access to the collection of research below through December 31st. We’d like to thank Dr. Berman for his contribution to this campaign. |