Suicide in the 1970s: A Second Look

ABSTRACT: The decade of the 70's has been reviewed with the document Suicide Prevention in the 70's serving as a guide. Twenty-one goals put forward in the report were reviewed in light of subsequent progress in the field. Although progress was noted on many fronts, four areas were outstanding in the sense that envisioned goals were met or exceeded. These involved the areas of promulgation of information about suicide, establishment of standards and certification procedures, development of regional organizations to forward training and program development, and education of the public to improve awareness of suicide as a public problem. This analysis also identified areas where little or no progress has been made. From this there developed four recommendations:

• 1 The funding and establishment of a national case file using a standard nomenclature and a standard data base to improve epidemiologic knowledge, and to provide pooled data appropriate for more sophisticated research analyses.
• 2 The establishment of a task force to study the application of program evaluation methods to suicide prevention efforts.
• 3 The development of new programs at local levels to try to reach known high-risk groups and to provide relevant programs of suicide prevention for them.
• 4 Making creative efforts toward elaboration of a comprehensive theory of life-threatening behavior and exploration of developmental correlates of such behavior.