JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Dr. Christine Cauffield’s 38-year medical career has reached well beyond speaking to crowded ballrooms. But inside the Florida Blue conference center in Jacksonville’s Deerwood neighborhood, she summed up her stance on suicide in just a few words.
“A preventable public health crisis,” said Dr. Cauffield, “one we can all do something about.”
Cauffield is the CEO of LSF Health Systems in Jacksonville, which hosted the first-ever “Zero Suicide Jax Summit,” localizing a nationwide suicide prevention movement that started in 2012. It brought mental health experts around northeast Florida, across Florida and throughout the U.S. to share awareness and prevention resources with local leaders and business owners.
She told Action News Jax that, in all her years of work to turn strugglers into survivors, many people just need someone to listen.
“These people will then report feeling relief that someone has seen them, noticed them and heard them,” Dr. Cauffield said.
This sense of relief is something that brought Florida senator Darryl Bouson (D - District 16) from Tampa to Jacksonville to share with the room.
“I’ll never forget the day I asked for help,” Bouson said, “I had seen death as freedom, thought there was no other way out.”
Bouson says he’s now been sober for more than 27 years. He shared his story of recovery from drug and alcohol addiction with Action News Jax, which he says suicidal thoughts almost cut short.
“If I ever forget the pain of it, if I ever forget the disconnect of it, if I ever forget the darkness of it, then I’m doomed to repeat it,” said Bouson.
The Florida Department of Health’s most recent numbers on suicide rates around the state are from 2023. That year, the department says 14 in every 100,000 Floridians took their own life, a lower number than Duval County’s 16 in every 100,000 people.
Action News Jax found, from the Florida Department of Health’s numbers, that seven of our nine local northeast Florida counties had higher suicide rates that year than the state average. Putnam County didn’t just have the highest local rate, but the 9th highest rate in Florida.
Part of the goal of the Zero Summit Jax conference is to share mental health resources with Jacksonville-area business owners, including plaques with the number 988 inscribed onto them. 988 launched in 2022 as the three-digit nationwide suicide and crisis prevention hotline, which can receive texts and calls 24/7 to anyone in immediate need of help.
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