By: Max Xu

On July 16, a new number to dial for help went live: 988, a revamped National Suicide Prevention Lifeline that has been called the 911 of mental health.

The number has been backed with $400 million of federal funding, and was made to keep up with the rise of mental illness in the country recently, mostly due to COVID-19.

However, many people are worried that the call center won’t be able to keep up. In the first half of 2022, 18% of phone calls to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline were abandoned before they got help, according to a data analysis by The New York Times.

Hundreds of millions of dollars from the federal government have improved the situation though, increasing the number of phone banks enlisted to help with the Lifeline from 180 to more than 200.

While there have been major improvements, more work still needs to be done. “Once you get that off the ground, there’s got to be somebody who answers the phone,” says Xavier Becerra, the secretary of health and human services. “It’s not good enough to get a busy signal or to be put on hold.”

The large amount of funding from federal government has also supported a Spanish network, digital messaging services, and backup centers, where counselors can answer calls that would have gone unanswered.

The digital messaging services’ response rate is even lower than that of the phone calls. In the first half of the year, only about 42% of texts were answered. However, the rates have improved dramatically, increasing to 74% in the month of June, and the average wait time decreasing from 16 minutes to only 3.

The goal of 988 is to answer at least 95% of phone calls and answer within 20 seconds, as 80% of callers who disconnected last year did so within two minutes.

“We want to make sure that we are responding to everybody in crisis,” says John Draper, who oversees the Lifeline.

While the goal is still far away, the government is making significant progress towards it and may reach it sometime in the near future. Achieving the goal would most likely save the lives of many and improve the mental health of many others.

Source Article: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/15/us/988-mental-health-lifeline.html