June 17, 2025
CDC’s Suicide Prevention Communication Campaign Playbook
Closing out Mental Health Awareness Month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a new resource for planning suicide prevention campaigns. The playbook includes:
- Key Audience:
- Tools for identifying specific populations at higher risk and their networks of influence.
- Campaign Development:
- Steps to design effective strategies, craft meaningful messages, and promote behavior change.
- Behavior Models:
- Insights into frameworks like the Health Belief Model and Social Cognitive Theory.
- Messaging Best Practices:
- Strategies to emphasize hope and resilience and use culturally relevant language.
- Evaluation:
- Tools to measure campaign impact and improve future efforts.
The latest data from the CDC show that rural residents are at a higher risk of suicide than urban residents and that rates of suicide almost doubled between 2000-2020 in rural areas.
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