988 to become the new quick-dial number for help in a mental health emergency
The other day, I was driving down a major commercial street in my city and saw a blue Dodge Challenger come up next to me. When it passed me, I saw that the car had an enormous decal covering the entire back window. It said, “YOU MATTER,” with the number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. As I live in a military town, I couldn’t help but imagine perhaps the driver is a veteran and lost a colleague to suicide. I admire this driver’s contribution to public health with their mobile mini-counseling message and resource.
Four years to make three digits
In the summer of 2022, the driver will be able to change that number on the back of their car to something shorter. Starting July 16, 2022, in the United States, when you dial the number 988 on your phone, your call will go straight to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Certainly, in moments of crisis, the number 988 is much easier to remember than the current number of 1-800-273-8255. In July 2020, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) published rules that require all telecommunications and VoIP providers to make their services route the number 988 to the Lifeline by summer 2022. The year 2022 seems a long way off to me, but in reading over the FCC’s 69-page report and order, I am both inspired and daunted by the depth of work involved in launching a change like this.
Policy-making in progress
In 2018, Congress passed the National Suicide Hotline Improvement Act, which initiated the FCC’s collaboration with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). The FCC and SAMHSA studied the hotline and explored the feasibility of installing a universal three-digit number to reach the hotline. The FCC’s report is a heartening reminder of the exhaustiveness of the American policy-making process – the report demonstrates how stakeholders considered accessibility issues, timelines, number choice, public comments, telephonic technical issues with networks and switches, and on and on. During a chaotic and contentious political time, I am glad to see some progress on an important issue.
About the hotline
Vibrant Emotional Health, in partnership with SAMHSA, has operated the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline since its inception in 2005, nearly fifty years after the first suicide prevention center opened in 1958. Over the decades, increased public attention and studies identified suicide as a public health issue.
Suicide is a public health issue
In 2019, suicide was the second-leading cause of death, after accidents, for Americans aged 10-34. The prevalence of suicidal thoughts is high. According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), 12 million American adults had serious thoughts of suicide in 2019. Over nearly twenty years from 1999 to 2018, the total age-adjusted suicide rate increased 35%, before a small decline in 2019. Suicide and suicidal thoughts disproportionately affect vulnerable populations, including veterans, Native Americans, rural Americans, and LGBTQ young adults.
It is jarring to consider the incredible prevalence of suicidal thoughts. Nearly five percent of adult Americans experienced serious thoughts of suicide in 2019. Nearly one in 20 adults lived with such terrible emotional pain. The number of completed suicides is large (over 47,500 in 2019). Beyond that number, there are the radiating shadows of emotional pain that affect those who have prior attempts and have experienced serious thoughts of suicide. Living with profound emotional pain can be disabling.
There is an authoritative weight accompanying this designation of a three digit number. The use of “9” as the first digit makes 988 carry the urgency and importance of its sibling 911. I hope SAMHSA and the FCC will introduce “988” with a publicity campaign that will swiftly bring the digits into our collective awareness. The three-digit number will likely further secure the Lifeline as an accessible, commonly-used, public resource. I hope the number 988 becomes as ubiquitous in American society as the number 911. Then perhaps that blue Dodge Challenger won’t need to have the Lifeline number on its back window anymore because the number 988 will be at the front of everyone’s mind.