Hatching Ideas Lab Receives Funding to Develop a National Suicide Prevention Strategy for PSP
The Hatching Ideas Lab is excited to announce that Dr. Simon Hatcher has been awarded funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) to create and disseminate a suicide prevention strategy for Canadian Public Safety Personnel (PSP).
To inform the development of this strategy will gather evidence from the following sources:
A systematic review of suicides among public safety personnel
A realist review of suicide prevention programs in the armed forces and public safety personnel
System dynamic modelling will then be used to identify the effectiveness of different intervention components to be included in the suicide prevention strategy.
Once the model has been developed, the suicide prevention strategy will be co-produced with key stakeholders at the municipal and federal levels.
Despite there being both an increased risk of dying by suicide and several national level calls to action highlighting the importance of a PSP specific suicide prevention strategy, nothing has yet been put into place. This project will not only provide high quality evidence on this topic but will result in a meaningful national strategy that can be rapidly implemented. This proposal has the potential to impact PSP wellbeing and safety across the country, to influence policy and to kick-start meaningful action to reduce deaths in PSP.
We are very grateful to CIHR for funding this important work and to our co-investigators and collaborators.