In late 2016, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) called attention to the severity of a public health crisis in our midst – self-harm and suicides among children and adolescents – when it announced that in 2014, the suicide rate for children between the ages of 10 and 14 surpassed that of motor vehicle traffic accidents for this same age cohort. In addition, adolescents and teenagers ages 15 through 19 had the highest rates (per 100,000 of the population) of all NY residents for self-inflicted injury hospitalizations and emergency department visits for 2012-2014.

These alarming figures coupled with the fact that NY has the third highest number of teenagers between 12 and 17 reporting a major depressive episode in the past year (2014-2015) among all US states, demonstrates the critical need to increase awareness of the prevalence and severity of self-harm and suicide throughout the State’s high-need communities while improving the ability of preliminary care staff to identify and respond to patient suicide risk with timely and appropriate interventions.