Connectedness and Suicide Prevention in Adolescents: Pathways and Implications

Adolescent suicide is a major public health concern. Stressing the need for public health–based solutions, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identified “connectedness” as one means of pursuing this agenda. To advance this effort in suicide prevention with adolescents, (1) consistencies and variation in the literature overtly linking connectedness to suicide thoughts and behaviors (STB) are reviewed, (2) three more specific mechanistic pathways are proposed whereby connectedness may influence STB, and (3) several implications related to use of connectedness as a public health framework for adolescent suicide prevention and intervention are outlined.