King's College London

Approximately six thousand people die by suicide annually in the UK. The economic cost and the effect on those bereaved by suicide and societal impacts are significant. There is emerging evidence for inequalities in suicide risk by region, socioeconomic indices, and ethnicity in England. These inequalities could be exacerbated by the current cost of living crisis and other post-pandemic societal stressors.

Therefore population-wide monitoring of trends, as well as effective public health interventions that reduce risk across all sociodemographic groups, must be prioritised. Suicide and self-harm prevention requires coordinated collaborative action across multiple sectors, including health, education, local government, welfare, business and trade unions, criminal justice and police, defence, transport, and the media.

The objective of this challenge area is to evaluate the effectiveness of UK population-level policies and public health interventions impacting suicide and self-harm inequalities in the short, medium, and long-term.

We will consider two types of interventions: those with a primary intention to prevent self-harm and/or suicide, versus those that had a different intended beneficial impact; for instance, initiatives designed to ameliorate known risk factors for suicidal behaviours such as childhood adversity, domestic violence, gambling, and loneliness.