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The concept of suicide literacy is currently used to describe a perceived deficit in public knowledge about suicide that is directly related to specific health actions and outcomes. It thereby fulfils an important function in determining the way health education and communication are constructed as a problem in suicide prevention policy and practice. In this work, I examine the incongruities produced by operationalisation of the concept of suicide literacy and the way it preserves structural inequities in epistemic practice. Drawing on the concept of epistemic injustice, I contend that the routine social and material practices of suicide prevention education and communication aimed at advancing suicide literacy restrict certain testimonial and hermeneutical activities, resulting in the silencing of alternative interpretations and expressions of suicide. Because these practices prevent critical thinking, help maintain professional privilege and hide complicity with potentially harmful practices they are ethically and politically significant. The uptake of wide-ranging epistemic contributions must be paramount in order to connect multiple perspectives and build knowledge. In order to create a more democratic approach to suicide prevention education and communication that cultivates critical dialogue and promotes social and political agency and change, new ways of thinking about suicide literacy are required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Work remains a significant source of illness, injury, and death in developed countries. In Australia, for example, over 2,000 people die from work-related causes each year, with heavy social, economic, and personal costs (Safe Work Australia, 2013a). Most die as a result of work-related disease. However, many die from trauma. In 2012, 223 workers were fatally injured in Australia and in the United States the figure was 4,383 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2014; Safe Work Australia, 2013b). Apart from the immediate tragedy of each worker’s death, these deaths affect the victim’s immediate family, wider family, friends, and co-workers. It has been estimated that, on average, every death has an impact on at least 20 other people (Dyregrov, Nordanger, & Dyregrov, 2003), especially when the deceased had several families, which is an increasingly common phenomenon (OECD, 2014). Little is known, however, about how regulatory responses following a traumatic workplace fatality meet the needs of surviving families. With a focus on the coronial investigation, this article provides information about the regulatory responses to a traumatic workplace fatality and examines how various organizations involved in the coronial process following the death viewed its ability to accommodate the needs and wishes of surviving families. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Suicide has long been the subject of philosophical, literary, theological and cultural–historical inquiry. But despite the diversity of disciplinary and methodological approaches that have been brought to bear in the study of suicide, we argue that the formal study of suicide, that is, suicidology, is characterized by intellectual, organizational and professional values that distinguish it from other ways of thinking and knowing. Further, we suggest that considering suicidology as a “social practice” offers ways to usefully conceptualize its epistemological, philosophical and practical norms. This study develops the idea of suicidology as a social practice and considers the implications for research, practice and public discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]