Cultural Infusion into Statewide Suicide Prevention Work

Body of Abstract: Oregon’s youth suicide rate decreased in 2019-2021 – but only for non-Hispanic white youth. Oregon’s youth suicide prevention (SP) team has been adding equity-centered initiatives, policies, and infrastructure since 2019 with the theme of “taking the next right step”. Each step was important, but insufficient on their own to impact system level changes. In 2024, Oregon partnered with the Culture and Suicide Prevention Institute of Community Connections Psychological Associates to ask “What would it look like to culturally infuse an entire system from primary prevention to postvention?” With guidance from the Cultural Theory and Model of Suicide and its companion organizational TEMPOS framework, Oregon has taken strides towards coalescing its individual steps into a comprehensive, culturally-infused statewide SP system. Workshop participants will learn implementable strategies to impact system-level change, including data, contract requirements, individual and group learning examples, and equity-centered SP frameworks. Participants will also receive the newly culturally infused Oregon Suicide Prevention Framework for use in statewide or community wide planning.

Learning Objectives:

• Participants will receive tangible and implementable strategies for improving equity in suicide prevention from a statewide perspective.
• Participants will leave this workshop with three action steps for short term, mid-term, and longer term equity-focused implementation of suicide prevention.
• Participants will be able to apply and use already-available data in common state-level data systems to analyze suicide prevention efforts using race/ethnicity or other cultural identities.