Suicide is often thought of as the result of mental health struggles; however, over half of people who die by suicide do not have a known prior mental health condition. Many of these people die on their first suicide attempt, sometimes with little or no indication to those around them that they are considering ending their life. One thing that distinguishes this population is that they are more likely to die in the context of specific stressful life circumstances, such as relationship, health or financial problems, life stressors and recent or impending crises, than other people with a history of suicide attempt. Given that 50-60% of people who die by suicide do not tell anyone beforehand, a core challenge of suicide prevention today is how to identify those people most at risk of falling through the cracks and design upstream interventions to help them.
