• Tim Hoyt and Rebecca K Blais.
• Office of Force Resiliency, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, Washington, DC 20301-4000, USA.
• Mil Med. 2024 Aug 19; 189 (Suppl 3): 381389381-389.

ObjectivesA number of reports over the past 2 decades have provided recommendations for reducing the rate of suicide in the U.S. Armed Forces. Notwithstanding their veracity, few of these recommendations have been fully implemented.MethodsAt the direction of the Secretary of Defense and the U.S. Congress, a Suicide Prevention and Response Independent Review Committee was formed in 2022, with the mission of reviewing all policies and procedures regarding suicide within the DoD. The Suicide Prevention and Response Independent Review Committee considered over 400 specific recommendations garnered from component offices, military installation visits, and service member focus groups, ultimately making 127 recommendations. The Secretary of Defense then directed the formation of an implementation working group, which assessed these 127 recommendations for feasibility, impact, and required resourcing.ResultsAfter being assessed by the implementation working group, DoD leadership approved 111 total actions to move forward for resource consideration in the formal budget process. These actions aligned to 5 lines of effort focused on reducing suicide behavior throughout the military. Resourcing decisions then determined that 83 of these recommendations would be funded beginning in fiscal year 2025.DiscussionFrom an implementation science perspective, broader agency concerns throughout the DoD often are primary barriers to implementing system-wide changes. By making deliberate decisions about prioritizing the most impactful actions, resourcing processes can be informed directly by relevant data.ConclusionsImplementation of recommendations to reduce suicide deaths in the military must go through several deliberative steps in order to be prioritized, funded, and ultimately adopted by the military. As researchers and external stakeholders become more familiar with this process, recommendations for future prevention activities can better overcome barriers to implementation.Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Association of Military Surgeons of the United States 2024. This work is written by (a) US Government employee(s) and is in the public domain in the US.

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