National Policy to Reduce Suicide
In January 2025, the Swedish government adopted a new comprehensive national strategy for mental health and suicide prevention, combining mental health and wellbeing with suicide prevention in the same 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 2020, the government commissioned to the National Board of Health and Welfare and the Public Health Agency, in close cooperation with several other authorities, to propose a new national strategy in the field of mental health and suicide prevention.
A proposal for a new comprehensive strategy was presented to the government on September 1, 2023 and in January 2025, the government adopted the strategy.
The new policy contains a vision, four overarching goals and seven objectives to guide work for improved mental health, for 10 years to come. One of the strategy’s overarching goals is fewer lives lost to suicide, and one of the objectives in the strategy is to strengthen suicide preventive work. The strategy also contains prioritized measures, outlining in more detail what needs to be done within each objective in order to reach the strategy’s goals. For the objective to strengthen suicide preventive work, the prioritized measures are:
- Identify people in difficult life situations early to reduce social and economic risk factors linked to suicide and suicide attempts.
- Safe health care and social care for those at risk of suicide.
- Coordinate response efforts during acute suicidal incidents.
- Reduce access to methods and means of suicide.
- Reduce stigmatisation and increase knowledge about suicide
and suicidality (includes safe media reporting). - Strengthen support for relatives and those close to people who have made suicide attempts or died by suicide.
When the strategy was adopted, a large number of authorities from several different ministries, a total of 27, were given the task to participate in the work to implement and follow up the new policy. The Public Health Agency and the National Board of Health and Welfare were assigned to coordinate, support and follow up on the implementation, in close collaboration with other authorities and stakeholders.