San Diego County releases 2024 suicide-prevention action plan; officials cite overall decline in deaths but rising risk for youth and some groups

San Diego County officials and suicide-prevention advocates on the county’s Suicide Prevention Council released the San Diego County Suicide Prevention Action Plan (SPAP) 2024 and a companion community report at a press conference, reporting 363 county resident suicide deaths in 2023 and urging broader community action to prevent more deaths.

The SPAP 2024 update and report span the past decade of data and lay out strategies county leaders say will guide prevention work. "Our goal is to create a community where everyone is aware that they have a role to play in suicide prevention," said Dr. Luke Bergman, behavioral health services director for the County of San Diego.

Why it matters: County officials and the Suicide Prevention Council (SPC) said the documents are intended as practical guides for local agencies, schools, nonprofits and residents to coordinate training, crisis response and means-reduction efforts. The reports also highlight mixed trends: an overall decline in deaths from 2019 to 2023 alongside recent increases for certain populations that officials called concerning.

Key findings and figures

- Countywide deaths: In 2023 there were 363 suicide deaths among San Diego County residents, compared with 460 deaths in 2019 — a 12% decrease over that five-year span, officials said.

- Recent increases: Between 2021 and 2023 the county recorded a 6% overall increase in suicide deaths. Officials highlighted sharper increases for specific groups over that same two-year window: a 51% increase in the suicide rate for non‑Hispanic Black residents and a 56% increase for people ages 10–24.

- Highest-rate group: County data show the highest suicide death rate remains among middle‑aged and older non‑Hispanic white men, particularly in East County. Dr. Bergman emphasized means reduction for firearms, noting, "Overwhelmingly, males who attempt suicide do so using firearms. And overwhelmingly, relative to other means of suicide attempt, firearms are deadly."

Programs, training and surveillance

Speakers described several programs and expansions the county and SPC are using to translate the plan into action:

- Mobile crisis teams: Since the previous November, mobile crisis response teams have been deployable to school districts across the county.

- HEAR NOW school program: The Helping, Engaging, Reconnecting, and Educating (HEAR NOW) program has reached more than 38,100 students with suicide-risk assessments and interventions.

- Near‑real‑time surveillance: County behavioral health’s epidemiology team developed a surveillance report using syndromic emergency-department data to track suicide risk more quickly than traditional mortality statistics.

- Trainings and reach: The SPC, facilitated by Community Health Improvement Partners (CHIP), provided 142 suicide-prevention trainings in 2023 that reached nearly 2,000 people; trainings are offered free of charge, speakers said.

- Screening pilots: The county has piloted increased suicide screening and intervention in federally qualified health centers, especially those in rural parts of the county.

Equity, translation and community tools

The SPAP 2024 update, presenters said, expands language access and community-facing content: the update is available in English, Spanish, Chinese and Somali now, with planned translations into Arabic, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Korean and Persian. The plan also includes CDC- and community‑informed risk and protective factors, community-recommended strategies, and a stronger evaluation framework than the prior 2018 update.

Personal testimony and calls to action

Sebastian Slovan, a Suicide Prevention Council member and founder of the nonprofit Nature Unplugged, shared personal lived experience at the press conference and urged community connection and training. "There’s something kind of strange about the way my dad died ... there was this sort of shame, the stigma, around suicide," Slovan said, describing how nature and community helped his recovery and why he joined prevention work.

Officials urged community members to get trained, host or attend suicidality-awareness courses, and use the SPAP and report as tools for planning local prevention activities. Linda Puebla, program manager at Community Health Improvement Partners and facilitator for the SPC, said the council’s vision remains "0 suicides in San Diego County" and pointed attendees to spcsandiego.org for resources and training sign-ups.

What officials asked of partners

Speakers asked community organizations, schools and individuals to: host or attend trainings (QPR and other gatekeeper models were specifically mentioned), adopt safer-storage conversations around firearms as part of means-reduction, share the new reports broadly, and consider joining the SPC as volunteers or partners.

Limitations and cautions

Presenters noted that mortality data lag and that emergency-department and crisis indicators provide earlier signals; they emphasized the need to interpret trends carefully. County officials repeatedly framed the SPAP update as a coordinated, community-level tool rather than a document that imposes new legal mandates.

Where to find the reports

The SPAP 2024 update and the SPC community report 2024 are available from the Suicide Prevention Council at spcsandiego.org. Presenters said SPC members and CHIP staff were available for interviews after the press conference.

Ending

County behavioral health and SPC members described the SPAP 2024 release as both a progress report and a renewed call to action, stressing training, data-driven monitoring and means-reduction as priorities to keep reducing suicide deaths across San Diego County.