Policy and advocacy for preventing suicide

In Australia, suicide is the leading cause of death for males and females aged between 15 and 49. In a typical year, over 3,000 people in Australia die by suicide. That's an average of nine people every day.

For every suicide, there are tragic ripple effects for family, friends, colleagues and the broader community.

Key issues

  • In Australia, suicide kills almost twice as many people as the road toll each year
  • Men are three times more likely to take their own life than women
  • Women are more likely to think about, plan and attempt suicide, compared to men
  • First Nations Peoples are twice as likely to take their own lives, compared to non-Indigenous Australians
  • Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people have much higher rates of attempting suicide compared to heterosexual people:
    1. 48.1 per cent of transgender youth have attempted suicide at some point in their life (14.5 times the rate)
    2. 37 per cent of transgender young people (who had been discriminated against) reported a suicide attempt (11.2 times the rate)
    3. Just under 40 per cent of LGB young people (who had experienced physical abuse) and slightly over 15 per cent (who had experienced verbal abuse) had attempted suicide.

Beyond Blue’s policy and advocacy focus is:

  • working to ensure that the community is aware of the unacceptable suicide rate in Australia and acting to prevent suicide
  • advocating for more communities to implement a range of effective suicide prevention strategies and recognising that we all have a role to play in its prevention
  • supporting people at greatest risk of suicide, especially those with a previous suicide attempt and first responders.

Find out more about our work

More information about suicide, including information for people who have lost someone to suicide, those concerned about a friend or family member, anyone who may be having suicidal thoughts, our suicide safety planning app BeyondNow, and Beyond Blue's The Way Back Support Service to prevent further suicide attempts, is available via the link below.