The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration should make 988 Lifeline data available so researchers and policymakers can evaluate the effectiveness and appropriateness of the handling of calls, and to ensure callers’ human rights are being respected, Citizens Commission on Human Rights says.
—
Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) is calling on the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to collect and make publicly available data from the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline on the reasons for calls to the Lifeline and the resolutions of those calls, so that researchers and policymakers have an accurate picture of the results of the program.
The 988 Lifeline system, formerly known as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, launched in July 2022 to provide an individual in crisis, or someone connected to them, a phone number to call and get help with their mental health or substance abuse issue.
The statistics publicly available from Vibrant Emotional Health, the national Lifeline administrator, and SAMHSA do not include either the circumstances that led to the calls, which can be non-emergency in nature, or the outcomes for the callers, so it is not known how many calls end up with the caller receiving the emergency intervention of being involuntarily transported by police or emergency medical teams to psychiatric facilities, or why.
Vibrant’s stated policy is to “initiate an involuntary emergency service intervention only as a last resort,” and it has long reported that one in 50 (2%) of calls to the Lifeline lead to emergency services being dispatched.
However, there is evidence from states’ reports on their own call centers and from NRI, a nonprofit organization that collects data on public behavioral health systems, that this figure may significantly understate the number of Lifeline callers being subjected to coercive emergency procedures.
In its 2023 report on various outcomes from crisis call centers in 10 to 25 states, NRI found that “an average of 16.9% of calls (median of 7.0%) resulted in mobile crisis [teams] being dispatched, 3.8% resulted in law enforcement being dispatched, 1.9% resulted in EMS [emergency medical services] being dispatched, and 2.3% of calls were transferred to a 911 system (which may have then dispatched law enforcement or EMS to respond to the individual in crisis).”
Research has found that forcing people to go to psychiatric facilities does not improve mental health outcomes and that those admitted against their will are more likely to attempt suicide after discharge. Concern about being involuntarily confined in a psychiatric setting is one of the main reasons young adults do not seek mental health care.
In light of evidence showing a lack of benefit and considerable harm from coercive mental health treatment, international human rights organizations are calling for abolishing all coercive mental health practices. In 2023, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights called for an end to coercive mental health services, saying the practices “violate the right to be protected from torture or cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment.”
WHO’s opposition to nonconsensual mental health treatment extends even to those in acute mental distress, saying that individuals in mental health crisis “are at a heightened risk of their human rights being violated, including through forced admissions and treatment,” which are “harmful to people’s mental, emotional and physical health, sometimes leading to death.”
In 2019, the Council of Europe passed a resolution calling on its member nations “to immediately start to transition to the abolition of coercive methods in mental health settings.” The resolution cited evidence pointing to the “overwhelmingly negative experience of coercive measures, including pain, trauma and fear.”
Among international psychiatric organizations, the World Psychiatric Association has stated its concern about “the extent to which coercive interventions violate” human rights. The European Psychiatric Association says that examining how to reduce coercive practices in psychiatry is a priority for the association.
In its April 2024 report on the 988 Lifeline, SAMHSA says that it will “strengthen data collection from [call] centers to assess outcomes of service.” SAMHSA acknowledges that no research has yet shown a reduction in near-term suicide risk from the Lifeline.
“SAMHSA owes the American people transparency on the results of the 988 hotline,” says Anne Goedeke, president of the CCHR National Affairs Office. “Making meaningful data from this massive program available to independent researchers to evaluate should be a priority for SAMHSA.”
About the company: The Citizens Commission on Human Rights was co-founded in 1969 by members of the Church of Scientology and the late psychiatrist and humanitarian Thomas Szasz, M.D., recognized by many academics as modern psychiatry’s most authoritative critic, to eradicate abuse and restore human rights and dignity to the field of mental health.
Contact Info:
Name: Anne Goedeke
Email: Send Email
Organization: Citizens Commission on Human Rights, National Affairs Office
Address: Washington, DC
Website: https://www.CCHRNational.org
Release ID: 89137741
If you encounter any issues, discrepancies, or concerns regarding the content provided in this press release, or if there is a need for a press release takedown, we urge you to notify us without delay at error@releasecontact.com (it is important to note that this email is the authorized channel for such matters, sending multiple emails to multiple addresses does not necessarily help expedite your request). Our expert team will be available to promptly respond within 8 hours – ensuring swift resolution of identified issues or offering guidance on removal procedures. Delivering accurate and reliable information is fundamental to our mission.
