Paper: “Community priorities for preventing suicide in autistic people: an approach to guide policy and practice"
This paper was published in 2026, in the journal Autism in Adulthood.
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The research was initiated, promoted and supported by charity Autism Action, whose number one priority is suicide prevention in autistic people. The authors were Dr Rachel Moseley, Dr Tanya Procyshyn, Ms Tanatswa Chikaura, Dr Sarah Marsden, Dr Tracey Parsons, Dr Sarah Cassidy, Dr Carrie Allison, Dr Mirabel Pelton, Dr Elizabeth Weir, Mr David Crichton, Professor David Mosse, Professor Jacqui Rodgers, Dr Ian Hall, Dr Lewis Owens, Mr Jon Cheyette, Ms Holly Hodges, Dr Darren Hedley, and Professor Simon Baron-Cohen (author links will open in separate tabs).
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You can click HERE to download this paper.
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Please note that the paper may be triggering. Please take care of yourself; you may decide not to read it right now if you are in a vulnerable state.
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Keep reading to see a less-detailed plain English summary, or you can watch my explanatory video!
Why is this an important issue?
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Suicide is a leading cause of death for autistic people, and many more live with distressing, intrusive suicidal thoughts.
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Research has focused on understanding why autistic people are at higher risk. There is virtually no research exploring how suicidal thoughts, suicidal behaviours and suicide deaths can be prevented in autistic people - and very few studies that ask autistic people what they think about this. What actions do autistic people and those close to them (their supporters/allies) think should be the top priority for policy-makers and clinicians?
Here is a video summary of this paper. You can change your view by clicking on the symbol in the right-top corner. You can also open it up to large screen, and turn captions on and off by clicking the 'CC' button. (Please ignore my speech impediment in places!)
What was the purpose of this study, and what did the researchers do?
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We wanted to hear autistic people's ideas and priorities for ways to reduce or prevent suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts and suicide deaths in autistic people. We also wanted to hear ideas and priorities from those who support/advocate for an autistic person (their supporters/allies). ​​
Working with the charity Autism Action and their advisory panel of autistic people and family members of autistic people, we designed a two-phase study:
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Phase 1: The ideas-gathering stage
We used an online survey to learn
about autistic people's suicide-related experiences. We asked participants to
write in short and/or long-term ideas for how suicide could be prevented.
We analysed 3373 suggestions from Phase 1 participants. We distilled these into 63 specific ideas, and built them into:
Phase 2: The ideas-ranking stage
In a second online survey, we asked a separate, larger group of participants to rank the ideas generated by Phase 1 participants (i.e. to select their favourites). We also gave them the opportunity to tell us their own ideas about suicide prevention.
Altogether, across both phases of our survey, 3962 autistic people took part. We also had 627 people (called 'supporters/allies') who either currently supported/advocated for an autistic person, and/or had been bereaved by the suicide of an autistic person. Some supporters/allies were autistic themselves! Most participants (95%) were from the UK.​
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We had so many findings from this two-phase study that we published several papers, including one on the suicidal experiences of Phase 1 participants, and one on their experiences of trying to seek help (pages will open in new windows).
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Autistic people had so much to say about suicide prevention that we split these findings into two papers:
The paper you're reading about here will tell you about the ideas that Phase 1 participants had for suicide prevention. It will also tell you which of these were selected as priorities by Phase 2 participants. This paper is therefore about both phases of the study.
In the other paper, we gave Phase 2 participants the opportunity to have their own say about suicide prevention. That paper is just about Phase 2.
Here is a summary of the results from both phases.
Phase 1: The ideas-gathering stage
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Participants wrote their ideas for suicide prevention into our online survey. A team of researchers (3/4 neurodivergent) analysed the ideas, looking for themes that were similar across differently-worded ideas. Some were ideas to help autistic people in crisis right now, while others were about preventing people from developing suicidal thoughts in the longer-term. Here are the ten most common broad kinds of ideas from autistic people.
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To prevent suicide in autistic people, we need:
1. To train professionals (especially in healthcare) to understand suicide, trauma, burnout and mental health issues in autistic people.
"Being taken seriously and being validated by others especially as an autistic woman. Not having my concerns and feelings passed off just as anxiety" (Participant quote)
2. Autism-specific professionals, services, interventions and tools.
"help needs to be delivered by autism specialists. it can’t be generic as precious time is wasted" (Participant quote)
3. To tackle societal ignorance, prejudice and discrimination related to autism, mental
health and suicide
"Make society more accessible to autistic people. Jobs that don’t make us miserable. Education for non autistic people so we don’t scare them or anger them" (Participant quote)
4. To make existing services and support faster and easier to access, with better
continuity of care and non-speaking ways to access help.
"Make it easy for the person to seek help. If they get to this point they are usually beyond being able to help themselves" (Participant quote)
5. To focus on improving autism assessment and diagnosis across the lifespan.
"Modernisation of autism assessment process that isn’t as stressful and low key dehumanising" (Participant quote)
6. To facilitate peer support (in-person/online), one-on-one mentoring or peer mental health
support.
"Some way to speak to other neurodivergent people who feel or have felt how I feel would be helpful, as I find most of the support seems targeted at NTs, and doesn't really help me" (Participant quote)
7. To focus on improving mental health with continuous, preventative support, including help
with self-esteem and emotions.
"Support needs to be available earlier and, as it is a common feeling not to want to burden others with problems, support needs to be ongoing until proven not needed, rather than reapplied for" (Participant quote)
8. To develop strategies for coping with suicidal thoughts and improving wellbeing.
"By encouraging autistic people to do the things they love" (Participant quote)
9. To provide social support, non-judgemental and empathic.
"Better social support systems and safety nets for people with invisible disabilities" (Participant quote)
10. To improve support/interventions in the education sector: flexible, person-centred, and strengths-based learning.
"More mental health support teams in schools that are PROPERLY trained and equipped to deal with autistic/neurodiverse students" (Participant quote)
Our participants also said that to prevent suicide:
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We need to improve the autism diagnosis process: faster, more humane, and available to people of all ages.
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We need to identify undiagnosed autistic adults.
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We need better support for autistic people in the community: non-medical support with everyday life.
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We need better help with employment, and more autism-friendly workplaces and employers.
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We need reform of welfare services (i.e. disability payments or 'benefits') for people who can't work.
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We need education for autistic people on topics important to them (e.g. burnout) - possibly in the form of post-diagnostic support.
Phase 2: The idea-ranking stage​
These are the most commonly selected ideas from Phase 1
- i.e. the top ten suicide prevention priorities of Phase 2 participants.
1. Mental health treatment, therapy, and support designed for autistic people.​
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2. Mental health support for autistic people earlier and when they need it, to help prevent them reaching crisis​.
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​3. Post-diagnostic support when people are diagnosed as autistic.
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4. Improve assessment/diagnosis of autistic girls and women.
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5. Train GPs and their staff to understand and work with autistic people (e.g. basics of autism, communication, increased risk of mental health difficulties and suicide, trauma and burnout).
6. Allow autistic people to take a break from work when they need it for their mental health.
7. Safe spaces for autistic people to visit and/or stay when they are in crisis.
8. Train staff in NHS (National Health Service) mental health services to understand and work with autistic people (e.g. basics of autism, communication, increased risk of mental health difficulties and suicide, trauma and burnout).
9. Shorter waiting times for autism assessment/diagnosis.
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10. A service to help autistic adults with day-to-day living (such as managing bills, coping with housework, cooking and other everyday tasks that people find difficult, and understanding social expectations from other people).
Autistic people and their supporters/allies were mainly in agreement about the most important priorities: the need for early, preventative mental health support, support specifically designed for autistic people, improved access to diagnosis and post-diagnostic support, and better training for GPs.
Autistic people had slightly different priorities, though, depending on their gender, age and diagnostic status. For example, autistic cisgender men were more likely to prioritise reducing bullying in school, while autistic cisgender women, transgender and gender-divergent people were more likely to prioritise safe crisis spaces, tailored, early and preventative mental health support, and improved assessment and diagnosis of girls and women.
Our Phase 2 participants had lots more to say about the complexity of suicide prevention, including around the importance of co-developing approaches with the autistic community. Their views are presented in a separate paper (coming soon!).
We took the most frequently-occurring ideas from Phase 1 and made them into short statements that Phase 2 participants could select.
Here's what we found...
What are potential weaknesses in the study?
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We tried hard to reduce our influence on the data and the analysis process, so that our participants' voices shone through. However, since we had to interpret the data and choose how to present it, we couldn't totally remove our influence from the findings.
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We tried to involve autistic people throughout the design and running of the study. However, our study wasn't fully participatory as research should ideally be.
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Some people's voices and priorities were left out. We recruited very few autistic people of colour, and our study was not accessible to autistic people with learning disabilities and higher support needs.
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Finally, our findings are quite specific to the UK. However, we believe that some of these priorities are relevant all over the world, like the need to diagnose autistic people early in life and support their mental health.​​​​​​​​​
Thank you for reading!
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If you want to read the other paper related to this one, you can find that here.
How will these findings help autistic adults now or in the future?
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​There is virtually no research on ways to prevent suicide in autistic people. When we did this study, there were no published scientific papers which asked autistic people for their opinions on this matter. ​This study was an opportunity for autistic people and their supporters/allies to tell those in power what matters.
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While our participants recognised that crisis measures are needed to help autistic people right now, longer-term reform of education, employment, health and social care is needed - improving autistic people's lives throughout their lifespans, so that suicidal thoughts never develop. Our participants also clearly demonstrated that being undiagnosed contributes to autistic people's suicide risk, such that ensuring autistic people are diagnosed (and supported) as quickly as possible will also reduce suicide deaths.
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jCharity Autism Action will use autistic people's priorities to guide their approaches to the UK government and inform the research they support.
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Some of the priorities in our findings, such as the need for better training in healthcare, are things that autistic people, their supporters/allies and researchers have been pointing out for a long time. However, this study highlights that these needs have still not been addressed; these are still major problems that the government needs to address, to reduce premature deaths by suicide. We hope there is power in our collective voices, and will work hard to bring them to government attention.​
If you found this interesting, you may like to read:
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"'A combination of everything': a mixed-methods approach to the factors which autistic people consider important in suicidality" (2025)
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If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts or your mental health, please look at the resources page in case there is something helpful there for you.