Communicating the science of suicide prevention: A call to action for psychologists

Abstract

Introduction

Suicide is a major public health concern within the United States, and prevention efforts are essential for decreasing the suicide rate. Researchers and clinicians have knowledge and effective treatments for preventing suicide; however, their impact is limited to those with access to services. Science Communication (SciComm) is an effective tool that can be integrated into the field of suicide prevention and can bridge the gap between scientific findings and the general population. SciComm can help disseminate evidence‐based strategies for suicide prevention, dispel misinformation on suicide, and normalize help‐seeking.

Purpose

In this article, we propose specific, tangible ways that SciComm can be integrated into graduate school programs, mentorship, career advancement requirements and can help enact systemic change within the field of suicide prevention. Additionally, we discuss why it is important that the field of suicide prevention, specifically, adopts a SciComm framework. Embracing SciComm can help the field of suicide prevention to have a broader impact and can help to reduce rates of suicide.

INTRODUCTION

Suicide is a public health concern in the United States. As researchers and clinicians, we have a deep understanding of the research surrounding suicide, including risk factors (Garvia de la Garza et al., 2021), effective suicide risk assessment (Joiner, 1999), and interventions (Jobes et al., 2016; Linehan, 2014). Ultimately, we share in efforts to reduce suicide risk and deaths. Although this knowledge is important, our impact is limited only to those who have access to our research or clinical services. Therefore, we must determine ways to broaden our impact. One way to do this is through science communication (SciComm). SciComm is the practice of taking scientific information and communicating it in an understandable manner to the general population to increase knowledge. SciComm involves distilling complex research into understandable language and disseminating it to those who do not have access to traditional research (e.g., peer‐reviewed publication). SciComm includes awareness campaigns, interactions with the media, relaying findings through presentations, articles, press releases, and integrating scientific knowledge into conversations with news sources, television shows, and movies. Additionally, SciComm may aid in scientists being seen as relevant and accessible instead of being disconnected from the population, which also may result in scientists being seen as trustworthy. Furthermore, SciComm can help increase the role of data‐driven perspectives in national level decision‐making regarding suicide prevention. The ability to effectively communicate science relies on developing an understanding of the intended audience and how they digest information.

Although there is limited empirical evidence on the impact of SciComm in suicide prevention (e.g., 9‐8‐8 [Purtle et al., 2023]), there are many aspects of SciComm that translate well to suicide prevention efforts. For instance, SciComm seeks to recalibrate broader conversations on important issues to empower more individuals to make informed decisions. SciComm allows mental health professionals to educate the broader community to recognize suicide risk in themselves and others inform them on steps to take during a crisis (e.g., secure firearm storage ¹ ). Additionally, SciComm may help dispel misinformation around suicide (e.g., method substitution after means safety is implemented; Daigle, 2005). While these beliefs will always exist, SciComm efforts can counter misinformation and promote accurate knowledge to foster a deeper understanding of suicide prevention among the general population.

Another component of SciComm efforts is to create messages that resonate with the audience. Specifically, understanding the needs, perspectives, and values of stakeholders will allow for more effective messages. Therefore, when engaging in SciComm, the first step is to identify the audience. For example, research indicates that to promote secure firearm storage, certain messengers are more credible than others (e.g., Crifasi et al., 2018). We also need to develop an understanding of the audience's values to ensure the message is in line with their perspectives.

SciComm has also been shown to promote prevention strategies, normalize help‐seeking, and encourage behavior change. For example, educating parents and clinicians on appropriate ages for developmental milestones is an important tool for early detection of developmental delays and earlier intervention (e.g., Scharf et al., 2016). From a behavior change perspective, SciComm efforts have been effective in impacting the use of tobacco. Specifically, anti‐smoking messaging (e.g., warning labels) has been shown to increase intentions to quit smoking and beliefs about harms of tobacco (Hammond, 2011). For suicide prevention efforts, SciComm could be a useful tool in increasing awareness of evidence‐based suicide interventions (e.g., safety planning [Nuij et al., 2021], Collaborative Assessment and Management of Suicidality [Jobes et al., 2016], Dialectical Behavior Therapy [Linehan, 2014], Brief Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Suicide Prevention [Bryan & Rudd, 2018]). However, information on intervention strategies is not widely disseminated to mental health professionals, let alone to community members. The lack of dissemination and overall need for more information sharing regarding suicide prevention has been emphasized by others. SciComm has been cited as an important component of efforts to reduce suicide rates among members of the Armed Forces (Department of Defense, 2010; Langford et al., 2013). These authors not only highlighted the need for strategic, science‐based, consistent messaging but also emphasized the importance of involving audience perspective in SciComm planning and dissemination. In the approximate decade since, there have been some efforts to develop communications that promote life, normalize help‐seeking, and support suicide prevention strategies. However, there has not been much research on whether these messages are effective in influencing behavior or perspective change. Although campaigns to increase suicide awareness in the military are an important step, it is evident that this approach alone is not enough. Suicide rates among service members have continued to rise since 2013, and suicide is a widespread problem beyond the military.

SciComm can also help disseminate information on suicide prevention to other psychologists. Only 50% of psychology interns reported attending graduate programs that offered formal training on suicide prevention (Dexter‐Mazza & Freeman, 2003). Although most training directors want to increase their suicide‐specific training, many report barriers (Schmitz Jr et al., 2012). Therefore, many graduate students receive little to no suicide prevention training. However, graduate students and faculty members who conduct research and work in suicide prevention have a rare and valuable knowledge base that may be beneficial to their peers. SciComm can help them to disseminate suicide prevention information effectively to their department and the field of psychology as a whole.

There is a need for widespread dissemination of evidence‐based suicide prevention strategies. Although more research is needed to identify the most effective messages for suicide prevention, SciComm efforts in other disciplines suggest that concerted efforts to increase effective SciComm for suicide can begin to bridge the gap between researchers and community members. For example, the field of implementation science seeks to determine the most effective ways to implement evidence‐based strategies (Bauer et al., 2020). Implementation science and SciComm are related but distinct frameworks, with the former focused on better understanding how to integrate evidence‐based strategies into existing systems (e.g., healthcare settings) and SciComm focused instead on communicating scientific findings directly to communities. To keep this paper streamlined, we will focus on SciComm broadly. Many federal organizations and individual researchers have already bridged the gap between the research and the general population. For example, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and The National Institute of Health post research visuals and evidence‐based resources written for a lay audience on their websites. Additionally, many researchers have written books discussing the science of suicide prevention for the general population (e.g., Joiner, 2005). These initiatives have helped to both advance the field of suicide prevention and the communities' understanding of suicide. In this paper, we suggest additional efforts to bridge the gap between research and the general population. Specifically, we argue for efforts to support suicide prevention strategies should begin in psychology graduate programs through formal training in SciComm and identifying ways for graduate students to be involved. Additionally, we highlight the important role that psychology professionals have in SciComm. We believe that SciComm can impact suicide prevention by increasing public knowledge through partnerships with community members, the mentorship of graduate students, written works, research efforts, and policy advocacy. The goal of this paper is to describe how SciComm can be used by a variety of professionals who aim to reduce suicide and to discuss lessons learned that may provide a template for SciComm efforts in suicide prevention (see Figure 1).

FIGURE 1.

A summary of the tips we offer for incorporating SciComm in suicide prevention.

SCICOMM TRAINING AND MENTORSHIP IN GRADUATE SCHOOL

Formal SciComm training

Effective SciComm for suicide prevention will require participation by individuals capable of strong communication and engagement with the diverse set of stakeholders involved in suicide prevention efforts. While people have made individualized efforts to learn and implement SciComm in their suicide research and practice (e.g., The New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center), SciComm practices are not yet widespread for suicide prevention. This is, in part, because SciComm is not traditionally included or prioritized in most curriculum or training in graduate programs of psychology. This lack of systematic training perpetuates a barrier to SciComm, as mentors and professors do not train their students in SciComm, and those students are then ill‐equipped to use SciComm in suicide prevention. Ultimately, there is a two‐part solution to this problem: (1) prioritize SciComm training for existing professionals in the field to increase the base of professionals who can engage in and train others in SciComm, and (2) make SciComm a core part of graduate training curriculum in fields that aim to address suicide prevention. Integrating SciComm in graduate training programs can have the greatest impact in the field and in suicide prevention by training more students in the foundations and diverse skillset of SciComm to improve dissemination and implementation using multimethod approaches.

To date, several programs and initiatives include resources for SciComm in graduate training across departments and disciplines. One example is the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). AAAS is an excellent resource to guide students, professionals, and training programs who are hoping to explore and build SciComm skills. Their free communicating science toolkit includes tips and resources for SciComm fundamentals, working with journalists, engaging policymakers, using multimedia and visuals, and in‐person engagement. AAAS also hosts a series of paid workshops that can be available to training programs, universities, and organizations. Another notable SciComm program is the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University, which hosts a range of professional development SciComm programs inclusive of both communication strategies and applied‐improvisation exercises through mini workshops and intensive seminars. Separate from these organizations, there are also now a growing number of standalone SciComm initiatives at universities that include workshops, courses, certificates, and even majors or minors in SciComm. For example, many universities and organizations have media liaisons who are experts in communication and may provide free trainings upon request. While these resources and opportunities exist, we do not believe they are actively integrated within the graduate curricula or prioritized as a core competency in training given that SciComm is not a required component of training in clinical psychology. This places SciComm training solely on the student.

Understandably, most graduate programs focus on the requirements of their core curriculum and licensing bodies when determining the needs and courses of their students. In clinical psychology, students are overcommitted with numerous courses due to governing body requirements (which do not currently include SciComm), research, and clinical work. Intentional efforts are needed to integrate SciComm into graduate programs through training workshops and even within assignments for existing courses. As an initial step toward this goal, we first launched a pilot program within our clinical psychology PhD program: Rutgers University Communicating Clinical Science training initiative (“RU Communicating Clinical Science?”), founded with a small grant from the Society for a Science of Clinical Psychology Varda Shoham Training Initiative for innovation in clinical science training (since extended into a university‐wide program). Coordinating with the university‐wide Rutgers SciComm Initiative, we hosted six guest speakers to lead workshops on the fundamentals of SciComm, oral communication skills, communicating with policymakers, writing Op‐Eds and policy briefs, and developing and disseminating visuals and infographics. By encompassing a team of SciComm experts across disciplines, graduate students gained foundational skills in SciComm and could start to apply these skills in suicide prevention and other high‐priority research areas. We aim to build upon this program in future years by diving deeper into two areas of SciComm per year through a mix of monthly didactic and applied workshops. The goal is for students to learn and implement SciComm skills in their own clinical research through writing, visuals, policy, and social media, and to consider how to use SciComm during their training and beyond. The guide for developing this SciComm program and results showing the effectiveness of the program will be disseminated with the goal of extending the SciComm workshop and training more broadly. While the importance of public engagement and enhancing the impact of psychological science and suicide prevention has received more attention, more actionable steps need to be taken to integrate SciComm into formal graduate training, with a particular focus on suicide prevention.

Promoting SciComm through mentorship

To truly leverage all available resources, SciComm must be encouraged far earlier in a suicide researcher's career. Along these lines, the integration of SciComm into mentorship is vital. Mentorship relationships vary widely in scope and format, so prescribing a specific manner for SciComm mentorship to take shape would be unlikely to yield positive results. Rather, we feel it is most important to emphasize the utility of embracing SciComm as a central value within the mentorship relationship and to make several potential suggestions that may prove helpful in some circumstances.

In many cases, mentorship relationships exist within a broader laboratory setting, in which multiple students work within a group led by a single faculty member. Within such arrangements, there is generally a combination of individual meetings between mentor and mentee and group meetings featuring most of or the entire laboratory. Within the broader lab setting, an opportunity exists for the mentor to openly encourage SciComm as a lab value—a general way of thinking about the production and use of science in a manner that accomplishes shared goals for the group and ensures lab work reaches relevant communities. In doing so, the mentor can encourage multiple students to collaborate on specific SciComm efforts, leverage the ideas of the full group in adapting SciComm to meet current trends (e.g., new social media platforms), and provide opportunities for lab members to practice communicating about science beyond traditional scientific writing and presentations.

In terms of specific possibilities for SciComm within the mentorship setting, mentors might consider several options. For instance, with each peer‐reviewed publication, students can develop visual abstracts. Mentors can also work with students to craft press releases to be shared with the university communications teams. Seeking out media coverage of peer‐reviewed studies can feel awkward for some academics; however, it is a path toward ensuring the work reaches relevant communities, and crafting a press release affords students an opportunity to think about a different format for concisely relaying information from studies. Another option is for a mentor to develop a system for creating webinars, podcasts, or similar interview‐based approaches to recording discussions regarding lab work and published results to optimize the reach of the work and provide mentees with an opportunity to develop and hone their approach toward discussing scientific results. There are limitless options for developing and practicing SciComm within the mentorship relationship. By openly modeling SciComm as valuable and providing space for mentees to develop comfort and skill in this area, mentors can help ensure that such approaches become the norm within suicide prevention.

ENGAGING IN SCICOMM AS A GRADUATE STUDENT

While mentors can create an environment that prioritizes SciComm, it is also important for graduate students to play an active role in disseminating research and suicide prevention knowledge. Graduate school provides a chance for students to develop skills, refine their area of interest, and begin to impact their field. However, as previously noted, little formal training on SciComm exists in graduate programs. In this section, we provide tangible suggestions for students to disseminate knowledge and highlight why these efforts are important. Graduate students can engage in SciComm efforts through a variety of platforms. Some of the most common that will be discussed below are op‐eds, blog posts, visual abstracts, and presentations. For each type of SciComm effort, it is important to note that they should only be used to communicate evidence‐based, published research that has undergone a rigorous peer review process.

Given that graduate students are overcommitted, it is important to consider how SciComm can be integrated without creating excess burden. Op‐eds, blog posts, visual abstracts, and presentations are ways students can communicate scientific knowledge and promote their research that do not place a heavy load. Op‐eds or editorials are short articles that discuss current problems, highlight resources, or provide information. Often, graduate students conduct research projects, write scientific papers, or develop resources to help a specific need, and all these activities lend themselves well to being discussed in an op‐ed. Students should consider ways to combine their work (e.g., recently published paper) with current events (e.g., Suicide Prevention Month) to develop on op‐ed with potential to impact the general population. Additionally, op‐ed writing can help students develop skills in summarizing the main takeaway of a study and highlighting the implications for specific communities, policies, or practices.

Similarly, blog posts allow students to highlight their work while developing skills for writing non‐standardized articles. Only about half of clinical psychology trainees receive formal education on suicide prevention, and blogs that share information on best practices, new research, and tools may increase provider knowledge and treatment of suicide. Additionally, blog posts may be a light lift given that students already understand, have contributed to, or have written (e.g., conference submissions, manuscript) much of the content that is being disseminated. Students are encouraged to consider turning their recent work into a blog post to be disseminated through a professional organization (e.g., American Psychological Association), lab website, or university newsletter.

Another avenue to communicate science is visual abstracts. Visual abstracts consist of distilling main research findings into an easily understandable, visually appealing graphic. Some of the top peer‐reviewed journals (e.g., Journal of the American Medical Association [JAMA]) have begun developing visual abstracts to be shared when an article is published. Visual abstracts allow for information to be easily digested and may spark additional interest in the article, resulting in more people reading it in full. For students, visual abstracts are a great way to highlight and promote their work or work that has influenced their thinking or clinical work. Like blog posts, visual abstracts may be achievable during graduate school given that the content was already created for the paper. When developing a visual abstract, one should quickly summarize the what, who/where, takeaway, and meaning of results. Visual abstracts are also a vessel through which graduate students can collaborate across disciplines. For example, communications students have expertise in presenting information in an understandable and visually appealing way to the public. Psychology graduate students can work with communications students to leverage their expertise when creating a visual abstract.

Lastly, students can sharpen their SciComm skills through delivering presentations. Presentations are arguably one of the most common ways to communicate research to other academics, peers, and stakeholders. Therefore, developing skills that allow one to be an effective communicator can increase the impact of one's work and may lead to policy change that positively impacts the community. Many students often present their work at conferences and may consider leveraging these opportunities to practice SciComm. Specifically, considering that many of their peers (and professionals) have limited training on suicide prevention, graduate students can help educate more providers on this important topic by presenting their findings in an understandable, jargon‐free manner. Additionally, students may be afforded additional, community‐based opportunities to present their work. Mental health organizations (e.g., NAMI) often allow students to present at local or chapter meetings, providing them with the opportunity to discuss suicide prevention outside of academia. Furthermore, groups such as Skype A Scientist are actively looking for graduate students (and professionals) to join their network and present remotely to school and community‐based organizations throughout the country.

Graduate students can promote knowledge of suicide prevention through written, visual, and verbal platforms. Additionally, students can shape the future of the field of suicide prevention and move it into a space that promotes the communication and dissemination of scientific knowledge. Graduate school is a time for students to develop and sharpen SciComm skills that can be carried into their careers.

SYSTEMIC CHANGES TO PROMOTE SCICOMM

In considering ways to increase SciComm efforts in academic suicide prevention spaces, it is important to remain cognizant of how the existing environment serves to actively stunt success. From the perspective of faculty members, professional activities are often driven at least in part by the structure of the tenure and promotion guidelines of a given individual's institution.

Promoting SciComm through alteration in promotion guidelines

In many cases, tenure and promotion decisions are based upon success in three domains—research, teaching, and service—with the weights assigned to each of those domains varying across institutions, departments, and even individuals. Regardless of the precise weighting, however, none of those three domains align particularly well with SciComm. Within psychology, for instance, research success generally hinges upon peer‐reviewed publications, national and international conference presentations, and grant activity. Teaching focuses on performance within classroom settings. Service focuses on committee and administrative roles at the department, university, or profession level and community service. In each of these domains, you can make a case for certain SciComm efforts being relevant; that case, however, may hold little sway with those evaluating the tenure and promotion application.

The result of this situation is that there is not only a lack of incentive for SciComm among academics but an incentive to avoid it, as efforts at SciComm could be seen as a distraction from or a use of time better spent on more traditional academic pursuits. Advanced faculty in many universities—those not only making tenure and promotion decisions but also those held up as models to junior faculty to help them understand institutional definitions of success—tend not to have extensive experience with SciComm. Thus, careers lacking such efforts are reinforced intergenerationally, and a system of insular academic communication is sustained over time.

To address this, universities must embrace SciComm as a value and codify this embrace through the explicit inclusion of SciComm efforts in tenure and promotion guidelines. This could involve the creation of a fourth domain specific to SciComm or, more plausibly, the inclusion of specific SciComm approaches as subdomains within research, teaching, and service, which would allow junior faculty to receive positive evaluations that further their career based on their SciComm efforts. Universities could evaluate faculty on their history of working with communications teams to develop visual abstracts, webinars, press releases, or other publicly available information on their peer‐reviewed publications. Additionally, universities could codify media appearances and published editorials as service, akin to giving talks in the community on their areas of expertise. Such efforts could also be codified as a form of teaching, particularly in public universities reliant in part upon state dollars and therefore in theory designed to interact with and help inform the public on matters of local and national interest.

Promoting SciComm through alteration in funding and publishing guidelines

In addition to embedding SciComm into the tenure promotion structure, the field should shift from having SciComm as an optional research add‐on, to having SciComm be an essential, integrated component of the research process. Funding agencies are well positioned to ensure all research is translated to the community and policymakers. In 2023, the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center required grant applicants to include information on how they plan to disseminate study findings beyond conference presentations and peer‐reviewed publications. In line with this, other funding sources should require dissemination and communication plans for all grant applications. These plans should be thoughtfully outlined and detailed beyond the traditional academic outlets and potentially considered as a score‐driving factor in funding decisions. This will result in principal investigators planning ways to disseminate science during the initial phases of a research proposal and make SciComm an essential component of research.

Systemically, peer‐reviewed academic journals also have an important role in increasing SciComm efforts. As previously mentioned, JAMA creates visual abstracts to highlight and disseminate key findings beyond journal pay walls. Creating these visual abstracts is a step forward in making research more accessible to the general population. Researchers can disseminate the visual abstracts that are created by peer‐reviewed journals to the general population. This approach is not only important for academic journals broadly but could be a useful strategy among journals specializing in suicide prevention (e.g., Suicide and Life‐Threatening Behaviors, Achieves of Suicide Research). These could be required, along with a “key takeaways” bullet‐pointed list written for a lay audience, to better disseminate research to a wider audience. Further, journals could include a dissemination strategy beyond publication, working with researchers to disseminate findings through podcasts or brief video clips summarizing key findings. Initiatives that are put forward by prominent journals could help set the tone of prioritizing SciComm in the field of suicide prevention.

SciComm to inform policy

Research on suicide prevention is conducted with the goal of enhancing prevention and intervention efforts and saving lives. However, research that does not extend beyond the scientific journals in which it is published has limited ability to facilitate societal change. Therefore, focusing on bridging the gap between research and policy is essential for the field and has been done successfully. The recent development of 9‐8‐8 as the Suicide Prevention Lifeline number was a product of successfully translating research into advocacy work and connecting directly with policymakers. More broadly, the field of psychology has also had success engaging with policymakers. For example, the American Psychological Association (APA) has coordinated visits with the offices of congressional representatives and senators to advocate for increased funding for the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and other agencies and grants that support suicide prevention efforts (American Psychological Association, 2023).

The field of suicide prevention can use past successes as a reference and framework for future policy efforts. With the knowledge that more policy initiatives are needed to continue to reduce suicide rates, ensuring suicide prevention experts are trained in communicating science to policymakers is essential. To address the lack of formal training on SciComm, the APA hosts virtual trainings aimed at educating psychology trainees and professionals on using SciComm to relay information to policymakers (American Psychological Association, 2023). This training is often paired with an opportunity to apply these skills by advocating to the legislative offices of Representatives and Senators for increased funding for federal suicide prevention programs. Furthermore, federal relations or legislative aid offices are helpful liaisons for scheduling meetings between legislators and psychologists or trainees in academic settings. University federal relations offices are often located in Washington, D.C. and have extensive experiences helping advocates from a wide variety of educational backgrounds craft “asks” for lobbying efforts. Written forms of science policy communication like policy briefs and memos can be useful aids to establish communication with legislators or highlighting policy that can be strengthened by psychological science. Policy memos are longer form, highlight the scope of a problem that can be addressed through policy change, and make specific evidence‐based recommendations to address this problem. In contrast, policy briefs are shorter and are often utilized to communicate the urgency of an issue that needs to be addressed through science policy. Policy briefs may also use graphics and more colloquial language, making them more accessible to wider audiences. Policy memos and briefs can be shared with legislators and advocates; however, there are also outlets for science policy briefs and memos to be published in peer‐reviewed journals that are accessed by other scientists interest in science policy (e.g., the Journal of Science Policy and Governance). Written science policy communication may be particularly approachable to engage in alongside reporting research findings through scientific manuscripts. However, there is currently a lack of awareness of these science dissemination opportunities among psychologists, as well as a lack of training in effectively engaging in these efforts. Additional trainings, especially hosted by organizations focused on suicide prevention, should be developed for scientists to more effectively engage in written and oral forms of science policy communication.

Community‐engaged SciComm

There are efforts to extend the forementioned policies into practice by incorporating community members into research; this has been successfully done in two ways: clinical trials and community advisory boards. While suicide‐focused clinical trials benefit the public by identifying best suicide prevention practices and effective treatment options, providing treatment that is acceptable to and wanted by those who it is intended for is an important aspect of this work. Pilot studies often include an aspect focused on whether participants found the intervention appropriate or acceptable before the full research trial (e.g., Sala et al., 2023). An important SciComm extension of these efforts is to continue to incorporate participants and community members beyond the pilot study. For example, the Nia Project at Emory University is focused on providing treatment to suicidal Black women with a history of interpersonal trauma. While the project stemmed from researchers vested in these efforts, participants expressed interest in ongoing treatment, and now, over two decades later, community volunteers have continued to be an integral part of the ongoing research and the types of suicide prevention services available. Although this project has a well‐established link between research and practice, the researchers were not required to involve community members or continue offering services. This highlights the importance of suicide researchers striving to go above and beyond by connecting with community members directly. Incorporating community advisory boards is another important way to do this. A successful example is the Suicide Prevention Resource Center (SPRC)'s Lived Experience Advisory Committee, who contribute insights into suicide‐focused messaging, programming, safety, and destigmatization. Another example is the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention's advisory groups and task forces, who have provided feedback on a wide variety of suicide‐focused initiatives including 9‐8‐8 messaging and national crisis workforce efforts. Partnerships like these allow research‐focused individuals to garner important perspectives from those directly impacted by suicide.

A call to action

SciComm provides an avenue forward for the field of suicide prevention where researchers go beyond the walls of academia to ensure their work has a direct, positive impact on the general population and policy efforts. To do this, the field should focus on the development and implementation of formal and informal SciComm training in graduate programs (as students, mentors, and programmatically), changing incentivization structures systemically at the institution level (e.g., promotion, publishing, funding), and intentional involvement and partnerships with policymakers and community members. Through SciComm, the field of suicide prevention can bridge the gap between academia and the public, increasing the impact of research and ultimately saving lives.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT

MDA receives personal income in the form of book royalties for a book related to firearms and suicide. He also receives personal income in the form of speaking fees, training fees, and consulting fees related to these topics. Lastly, Dr. Anestis receives salary support as a named investigator on several grants related to these topics. No additional conflicts of interest.

ETHICS STATEMENT

Given that no data from human subjects was collected or reported in this manuscript, no approval by the relevant Institutional Review Boards was required.

Bond, A. E. , Rodriguez, T. R. , Bandel, S. L. , Hamilton, J. L. , Boyd, S. I. , Gordon, K. , & Anestis, M. D. (2024). Communicating the science of suicide prevention: A call to action for psychologists. Suicide and Life‐Threatening Behavior, 54, 1092–1100. 10.1111/sltb.13114

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT

No novel data or analyses were presented in this paper.