Suicide Prevention amongst Service Members, Veterans, and their Family Members

Webinar Information:

Live Session: October 8, 2021 at 10am PST. Recording to follow.


Suicide is a national public health issue that can affect anyone; there is no single cause, it does not discriminate against gender, age, social economic status, or ethnic background.   In the United States, suicide ranks as the 10th leading cause of death; taking a deeper dive Nevada ranks 7th nationally and has the 11th highest rate of suicide when comparing across the nation. Every 11.1 minutes someone is dying by suicide. According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), 2020 National Suicide Prevention Annual Report, 46,510 Americans died by suicide in 2018, 6,435 U.S. Veterans were included in that figure. To understand the significance, every year since 2008, the number of Veteran suicides has exceeded 6,300; in 2018 veterans accounted for 13.8% of all deaths by suicide. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs realized they alone cannot tackle service member and veteran suicide solely, since 2018 the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and the VA partnered to support cities, counties, and states through the Mayor’s & Governor’s Challenges. This webinar will discuss Team Capacity building and Intersectoral Collaboration on a county, city, state, and national level; through the SAMHSA and the VA’s Mayor’s and Governor’s Challenge Teams national initiative to prevent suicide amongst our military population using a comprehensive public health approach.


Public Health Perspectives is a free online webinar series designed to showcase programs impacting public health. PHP discusses program design, lessons learned, and creative solutions with public health professionals around the nation. Each PHP webinar takes approximately 1-hour to complete. 

PHP Webinars are hosted live on the second Friday of each month at 10am PST.  

To join the live session, please enroll in the course before 10am PST on the day of the webinar. All PHP sessions are recorded. If you enroll after the live webinar session has ended, the course will contain a video recording of the live session you can watch instead. Please note, it may take up to one month for the recording to become available.

Learning Objectives:

At the end of the webinar, participants will be able to:

  1. Learn the Risk Factors for Suicide
  2. Raise awareness and knowledge about suicide amongst our military population.
  3. Learn about the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) & U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) national initiatives to prevent suicide amongst Service Members, Veterans, and their Family Members (SMVF)using evidenced-based strategies and best practices.                
  4. Define capacity building and understand its powerful role in establishing the Mayor’s and Governor’s Challenge Teams on a county, city, state, national level.
  5.  Understand how Intersectoral collaboration can impact your public health initiative and where to begin in the process.               

Target Audience:

  • Public health professionals
  • Community members 
  • Students

Duration: ~ 1 hour 

Continuing Education: N/A

Speaker: Kim Donohue, Senior Public Health Diversity Advisor, Trudy Larson MD Institute for Health Impact and Equity 


About the Speaker

Kim Donohue is currently serving as a Senior Public Health Diversity Advisor with the Nevada Public Health Training Center, at the University of Nevada, Reno, within the Trudy Larson Institute, School of community Health Sciences.  In 2018, she returned to University receiving a B.S. in Community Health Sciences with an emphasis in Public Health from the University of Nevada, Reno.  Kim’s student internship and then full-time employment with the State of Nevada, Nevada Department of Veterans Services was focused on suicide prevention amongst Service Members, Veterans, and their Family Members (SMVF) and connecting them to the correct help and/or service the first time.  Her emphasis and focus on community capacity building and intersectoral collaboration provided the State of Nevada the opportunity to be selected as one of seven states to participate in the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) inaugural Mayor’s Challenge Teams, and Governor’s Challenge Teams national initiative to prevent suicide amongst our SMVF populations.


Course Content

  1. 01

    • Download Calendar Reminder

    • PHP Webinar Welcome

    • Demographic Survey

    • Webinar Description and Presenter Bios

    • Webinar Replay

    • Course Evaluation

    • Save the Date for Next Month's PHP

This webinar is sponsored by: