Data released by the University of Pennsylvania found that 15% of U.S. adults are familiar with the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, a 1% increase from last year. Those individuals from the survey reported that they knew the number and correctly stated it when asked in an open-ended format. One percent of respondents inaccurately reported the number was 911, an improvement from 4% in 2023. The 988 hotline launched in July 2022.
Although the survey found a year-over-year increase, it did not detect an increase in accurate responses between October 2023 and September 2024, a period that included the launch of an eight-month 988 awareness ad campaign by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) in June 2024. The SAMHSA media campaign targets especially vulnerable subsets of the population, which may be too small to impact the overall awareness estimates in our nationally representative, general population sample.
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