Blog #3- Canada

One aspect of Sustainable Development Goal #3 (3.4.2) is to lower the suicide mortality rate. For this week's blog, I chose to look at Canada and what its country is doing to help lower the suicide mortality rate. Currently, there are about ten deaths by suicide per day in Canada (Suicide in Canada, 2019). While there are many aspects of mental health, suicide is one of the biggest issue people are facing regarding their mental health. In fact, death by suicide is the ninth leading cause of death for people in Canada.

The Mental Health Strategy for Canada was established in 2012. Their goal is to "Promote mental health across the lifespan in homes, schools, and workplaces, and prevent mental illness and suicide wherever possible."(Mental Health,2019). The Mental Health Strategy for Canada works with police officers, firefighters and police dispatchers to train them to talk to people who are considering suicide.

Canada as a country is addressing suicide by funding research for prevention. Since 2000, Canada has increased the amount of research they share about suicide from 2% to 6% in 2015. Some aspects they are focusing their research on is family history of mental illness, social factors, and exposure to violence.

Another foundation dedicated to preventing suicide is called The Life Line Canada. Something unique to them is that they have an app for smart phones that users can download and it provides education, prevention strategies and most importantly, it can easily connect you to a crisis center 24/7.

Photo accessed from https:thelifelinecanada.ca
 

The Life Line Canada website has many different resources to help people. They provide free online chat, texting, emailing, and over the phone chatting for anyone considering suicide. On their website, they also have resources that help you find a professional to speak to. That is just a short list but they have many different resources they provide for free to anybody that needs them. 

Although Canada's suicide rate is still around 10 for every 100,000 people, it has dropped since the 1970's where it was about 16 for every 100,000. Canada has committed to lowering the number of deaths by suicide and their progress is shown.

Citations

Mental Health and the Law. (2019). Retrieved from https://www.mentalhealthcommission.ca/English/what-we-do/mental-health-and-law.

The LifeLine Canada Foundation (TLC). (2019, March 27). Retrieved from https://thelifelinecanada.ca/.