Suicide prevention – the Public Health Agency’s Role

Our role is to develop coordination and monitoring of suicide and suicide preventive work, as well as to develop and disseminate resources to support actors on national, regional and local level within the mental health and suicide prevention field. The Agency has also been tasked by the government to lead and coordinate the work with implementing and following up Sweden’s new comprehensive national strategy on mental health and suicide prevention.

Coordination, Monitoring and Knowledge Support

The Agency's coordination is carried out through, among other things, a national collaboration group of authorities and a national interest group with researchers and representatives of the non-profit sector (NGO's). We also hold regular meetings with a national network of regional suicide prevention coordinators who represent each of the country’s 21 regions or counties.

Our monitoring of the development of suicide and suicide preventive work is done by analysing and presenting statistics e.g. on trends in suicide rates and by mapping suicide preventive measures.

We also develop and disseminate knowledge support about suicide and suicide prevention. This may include collaborations with researchers or summarizing other research and presenting it in a way that is adapted to different target groups- in factsheets, on the web, in social media and at conferences and seminars. Our work with developing resources focuses on population-based suicide prevention, i.e. non-clinical measures.

We collaborate closely with other authorities such as The National Board of Health and Welfare, who is responsible for producing national standards and guidelines within the fields of social services, health and medical services, as well as patient safety. They also maintain national health data registers and official statistics such as The Swedish Cause of Death Register, where all suicides in Sweden are registered, and is updated annually. Other agencies included in our collaboration are the National Transport Administration, the Swedish Medical Products Agency, The Swedish Prison and Probation Service, The Swedish Migration Agency, and the Police. We also work with the National Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention (NASP) at Karolinska Institutet.

National policy

Sweden’s suicide prevention efforts have long been guided by a National Action Program for Suicide Prevention, which was ratified by the parliament in 2008. In January 2025, the government adopted a new comprehensive national strategy for mental health and suicide prevention. The new strategy combines mental health and wellbeing with suicide prevention in the same policy document. It contains a vision, four overarching goals and seven objectives to guide work in the field for 10 years to come. One of the objectives in the strategy is to strengthen suicide preventive work, and one of the strategy’s overarching goals is to reduce the suicide rate.

A large number of authorities from several different ministries, a total of 27, have been tasked with participating in the work to implement and follow up the new national strategy. The Public Health Agency and the National Board of Health and Welfare will coordinate, support and follow up on the implementation, in close collaboration with other authorities and stakeholders.

State Grants Support Suicide Prevention

For the most part, operative suicide preventative work in Sweden is carried out by self-governing regions and municipalities. Since 2020, there is a state stimulus grant of 200 million SEK, allocated by the national government, for local and regional work with suicide prevention. The grant has been used to strengthen suicide prevention in several areas. As a result, the number of regional (and local) suicide specific strategies or action plans has increased significantly. In 2025, the earmarked grant for suicide prevention on local and regional level amounts to a total of 488 million SEK.

The Public Health Agency is commissioned by the government to follow up, evaluate and support the efforts being carried out using the state stimulus grant to regions and counties.

Many other organizations provide social support to different target groups, or direct support to people with different mental health needs. The non-profit sector for example, often complements the work and support provided by regions and municipalities, not the least when it comes to supporting survivors of suicide. NGO’s also spread knowledge, for example, through education and public awareness-raising efforts.

The Public Health Agency has been assigned by the government to allocate state grants to NGO's within the field of mental health and suicide prevention. In 2025, the sum of these grants is nearly 170 million SEK. Another 30 million SEK is allocated for the National Helpline.

EU-Collaboration

The development of the new national strategy on mental health and suicide prevention was informed and supported by the Public Health Agency’s participation in the EU financed Joint Action ImpleMENTAL (JA on Implementation of Best Practices in the area of Mental Health). The EU collaboration, which ran from October 2021 thru September 2024, focused on implementing best practices in promotion and prevention in the area of ​​mental health. We were involved in the part of the project that focused on developing national suicide prevention strategies.

JA ImpleMENTALs website (ja-implemental.eu)

From October 2024, The Public Health Agency is participating in another 3-year EU financed Joint Action called MENTOR (Mental Health Together). The MENTOR project aims at promoting mental health by sharing experiences from the political to the clinical professional sphere. In this Joint Action, we are co-leading a task on implementing mental health in all policies (MHIAP), which is in line with our new national strategy on mental health and suicide prevention.

Learn more

• Statistics on suicide in Sweden
• National Policy to Reduce Suicide