Montana’s health department said the state’s 988 suicide and crisis hotline is among the best-performing in the nation.
Montana’s suicide prevention coordinator told lawmakers Thursday that 98% of Montanans who dial the crisis hotline are answered by someone at an in-state call center. According to Karl Rosston, that’s a marked improvement over 2020, when more than a third of calls were directed to someone out-of-state.
“That’s important because people in Montana don’t want to talk to somebody in New York,” Rosston said. “They want to talk to somebody in Montana.”
Rosston broke down the state’s latest data from its suicide prevention program. Overall, suicides dropped 9% from 2021 to 2022, but more veterans in Montana took their own lives last year than the year before.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports the nationwide suicide rate increased by nearly 3% over the same period.
Rosston added that Montana’s crisis hotline response time has dropped from 30 seconds to about 13 seconds. He also highlighted a year-over-year drop in youth suicides. The state is in its third year administering a screening program in schools to identify at-risk students. Gov. Greg Gianforte earlier this year announced a funding boost to expand the program to cover nearly half of all Montana students.
While the short-term data is largely promising, Rosston said the department has more work to do. Montana’s average suicide rate surged over the last decade and is still one of the higheset in the nation.
