Public Health Training Online The National Center for Suicide Prevention Training Deborah M. Stone, MPH, MSW, Catherine W. Barber, MPA, Lloyd Potter, PhD, MPH Background: Suicide is a serious public health problem, and training in suicide prevention has not kept pace with recent rapid growth of the field. Methods: To address this concern, the Harvard Injury Control Research Center and Education Development Center, Inc., launched the National Center for Suicide Prevention Training (NCSPT) with funding by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau of the Health Resources Services Administration. NCSPT offers an online professional development workshop series for public officials, service providers, and community-based coalitions involved in suicide prevention. Results: Using a public health framework of prevention, the three workshops implemented to date have drawn over 1200 participants nationally and internationally over the past 3 years. Workshop participants completing the post-test and evaluation show consistent improve- ment in their knowledge of suicide, rate their online training experience positively, and report that they would take additional online courses if offered. A barrier to objective evaluation of the courses, however, is the high attrition rates of the courses, an expected feature of free online courses. Conclusions: Online training is a valuable option to help meet suicide prevention training needs employing flexible, easy-to-use, and inexpensive Internet technology. With its growing presence in the field, NCSPT will continue to develop new courses to improve the ability of professionals and community-based coalitions to reduce suicide and its devastating impact on public health. (Am J Prev Med 2005;29(5S2):247–251) © 2005 American Journal of Preventive Medicine Introduction S uicide is the third leading cause of death in the United States among young people aged 10 to 24 years and the second leading cause of death among people aged 25 to 34 years. 1 Every year suicides outnumber homicides. In 2002, suicides numbered 31,655 whereas homicides numbered 17,638. 1 The pace of progress in the field of suicide prevention has quickened dramatically in recent years. Inspired by the National Conference on Suicide Prevention in Reno, Nevada, in 1997 and publication of the National Strategy for Suicide Prevention in 2001, 2 and by the pioneering efforts of states such as Washington 3 and Maine 4 to address youth suicide, coalitions to develop statewide suicide prevention plans have mushroomed across the nation in the past 5 years and are now established or forming in virtually all 50 states. Training in suicide prevention has not kept pace with the burgeoning movement. Coalitions that have been tasked with creating blueprints for reducing suicide in their state have typically operated with little or no funding and little formal training. In the late 1990s, members of the Northeast Injury Prevention Network (NEIPN), a coalition of injury program personnel from state health departments in the six New England states, New York, and New Jersey, and other interested insti- tutions, proposed to undertake training and planning activities jointly rather than in isolation. Two activities resulted initially: first, the publication in 2000 of the Northeast Injury Prevention Network Suicide Databook 5 ; sec- ond, an invitational conference in June 2000 to train members of state and territorial planning teams from Health and Human Services Regions I and II. While working on these activities, NEIPN members under- scored the need for ongoing training in suicide preven- tion, both to orient newcomers to the field and to keep experienced personnel abreast of new developments. In response, two members of the NEIPN, the Har- vard School of Public Health’s Injury Control Research Center (HICRC) and the Education Development Cen- ter, Inc. (EDC), teamed up to respond to a request for proposals put out by the Maternal and Child Health From the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, Harvard Univer- sity (Stone, Barber), Boston, Massachusetts; and Education Develop- ment Center, Inc. (Potter), Newton, Massachusetts Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Deborah M. Stone, MPH, MSW, Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard Injury Control Research Center, 677 Huntington Ave., Boston MA 02115. E-mail: dstone@hsph.harvard.edu. 247 Am J Prev Med 2005;29(5S2) 0749-3797/05/$–see front matter © 2005 American Journal of Preventive Medicine • Published by Elsevier Inc. doi:10.1016/j.amepre.2005.08.019