Samaritan Radar Mobile App

 Suicide is now the 10th leading cause of death in the U.S., according to The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Data & Statistics Fatal Injury Report for 2012. The report, the most recent year for which full data are available, recorded 40,600 suicides. That’s death by suicide every 12.9 minutes. The sad news is, that number continues to rise. The good news is, there’s an app for that — technology delivers a way for family and friends to help prevent suicides of loved ones.

3 apps for suicide prevention

Samaritans Radar

An app created by Samaritans, the U.K.-based suicide prevention organization, Samaritans Radar taps into Twitter Inc.’s feed to monitor and alert you when a friend begins showing signs of depression, the leading cause of suicide.

The app monitors friends’ tweets and looks out for words or phrases such as “tired of being alone”, “hate myself”, “depressed”, “help me” and “need someone to talk to,” to name a few. It then sends an email alert detailing which friend needs help.

Samaritan stated that the system is not without its flaws, as it cannot discern jokes or sarcasm. But with the help of users, the system can learn.

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MY3

This service caters to troubled souls, helping them create a plan on how to stay safe during suicidal bouts. MY3 (My Three) helps users determine their emergency contact persons to create a chain of command for getting through the bad times. These emergency contacts could be family members, therapists or neighbors — whoever can be there in the darkest hour. The app is available for download for iOS and Android devices.

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ASK & Prevent Suicide

This program helps people be proactive in the fight against suicide by arming participants with the right knowledge and skills to handle harrowing situations. Participants are provided an overview of the basic epidemiology of suicide and suicidal behavior, including risk and protective factors, trained to recognize warning signs and how to intervene with a person they think might be at risk for suicide. The program is quite long and intensive but there are apps for iOS and Android that help people train on their own.

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