A Systematic Examination of Texas School District Websites for Suicide Prevention Information

Abstract

Youth suicide and related behaviors continue to be a significant public health concern in the United States as the 2nd leading cause of death for the 10–14-year-old age group in 2020 (Centers for Disease Control [CDC], 2022). Suicide was the 3rd leading cause of death for the 10–24-year-old age group in 2020 (CDC, 2022). Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) data from the CDC in 2019 showed that nearly one in five youth (18.8%) had seriously considered attempting suicide and 8.9% attempted suicide (Ivey-Stephenson et al., 2020). Schools can reduce youth suicidality by implementing suicide prevention, intervention, and postvention policies (Erbacher et al., 2015 Miller 2021; Singer et al., 2018). Research has examined public health approaches to youth suicide prevention (Horowitz, 2020), clinical treatments for suicidal adolescents (McCauley et al., 2018), and safe-messaging strategies around suicide prevention initiatives (Pirkis et al., 2017; Torok et al., 2017). Students and their parents may turn to school staff to seek help and accurate information about youth suicide prevention. However, there is no examination in the literature on what, if any, information is accessible to parents and students about suicide on school district websites. This study describes and quantifies the suicide prevention information available on a random sample of Texas school district websites. The findings of this study highlight that overall, 53% of the sampled district websites contained any suicide prevention information. Of the websites containing suicide prevention information, the most frequent pieces of information listed were numbers of suicide prevention hotlines