A new suicide hotline, 988, will launch in July 2022 and offer expanded services

A new suicide hotline, 988, will launch in July 2022 and offer expanded services

Posted on December 9, 2021

By July, the U.S. will switch to an expanded suicide hotline for which people can call a three-digit number — 988 — to get help. It’s also hoped that 988, not 911, will eventually become the number called when a person is experiencing a behavioral-health crisis. Americans seem to back the idea. Around 70% of people surveyed said they’d be willing to pay a fee to underwrite 988, according to Hannah Wesolowski, national director of government relations, policy and advocacy at the National Alliance on Mental Illness, an advocacy group in Arlington, Va. Pennsylvania State Rep. Michael Schlossberg (D-Allentown), co-chair of the Legislature’s mental-health caucus, agreed that telecommunications companies “are not too keen to increase their fees to pay for 988.” But, he added that 988 “is an important elevation of the issue of mental health.”