Suicide prevention programs: issues of design, implementation, feasibility, and developmental appropriateness

Emerging models of prevention focus on population-level risk reduction through enumerating antecedent conditions that are linked to subsequent expressions of disorder and dysfunction. The authors discuss the essential ingredients for successful prevention programs--comprehensiveness, fidelity, and intensity. The authors describe how to mount prevention programs to increase feasibility, access, and effectiveness. Suicide is an epidemic of low frequency in the general population and therefore does not receive appropriate attention in public health prevention campaigns. They argue for nesting suicide prevention programs within existing public health preventive intervention programs and provide some examples of how to reduce vulnerabilities and risk conditions for subsequent suicidal behaviors.