/Trump to roll out national plan to address veteran suicides: Officials

Trump to roll out national plan to address veteran suicides: Officials

It is part of a three-year effort to address veteran suicides.

President Donald Trump and his administration were expected to on Wednesday roll out the general contours of a plan to prevent military veterans and other Americans from dying by suicide, including increasing public awareness, improving training in workplaces and revamping how data on suicides is collected and used, according to senior administration officials.

A federal task force set up last year by a presidential executive order spent at least a year developing a “roadmap” for how to curb the 6,000 deaths by suicide among veterans each year — a rate that is, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, 1.5 times that of the general population.

Among 10 recommendations the 60-page report makes are creating a national public health campaign, prioritizing suicide surveillance and research, promoting changes to the way research on suicides is conducted, and developing partnerships inside and outside government, according to a copy of the plan obtained by ABC News.

Other broad goals include encouraging employers and academic institutions to provide mental health and wellness practices, increasing suicide-prevention training in different professions, identifying and promoting effective community-based efforts to prevent suicides, and elevating the issue of how to prevent people from using various methods — like guns, poison or bridges — to take their lives, according to the document. The task force also recommended streamlining access to suicide prevention programs and funding — at the federal level – resources to implement successful suicide prevention programs.

The plan would more broadly target suicides outside the veteran community, too. Suicides in the United States increased by 35% between 1999 and 2018, with around 48,344 deaths in 2019, according to the administration’s plan, citing the National Center for Health Statistics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The task force was due to deliver its roadmap several months ago but was delayed due to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus.

Amid concerns that the virus’s spread and the battered economy may be causing an increased number of suicides, a senior administration official said it was “fortuitous” that the task force had already been working on this issue.

Trump signed an executive order in March 2019 that created a three-year initiative called the “President’s Roadmap to Empower Veterans and End a National Tragedy of Suicide,” or PREVENTS. It created the interagency task force that authored the roadmap, led by Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie.

The group now plans to turn its attention to implementing the plan unveiled Wednesday, including coming up with a national strategy on suicide-related research and examining what legislative solutions could look like, according to a senior administration official.

ABC News’ Alexis Carrington contributed reporting.

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