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Comprehensive Injury Center (CIC)

Suicide Mortality Review (SMR)

A suicide mortality review team is a group of local multi-disciplinary organizational representatives who come together to discuss risk factors and circumstances surrounding a death by suicide to recommend local prevention strategies. Suicide review is intended to be a “deep dive” of a suicide case, using all available data and information to understand the factors that preceded the death by suicide.
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Purpose

To explore missed opportunities for intervention and enhance a community's ability to respond and prevent future suicide deaths.

Goals

  • To improve understanding of how and why a person dies by suicide
  • To develop recommendations to improve response to suicide deaths
  • Develop prevention initiatives to take action to improve the health and safety of our community.

Objectives

  1. Identify and evaluate the prevalence of risk factors for suicides.
  2. Promote collaboration between community agencies
  3. Educate the public, policy makers, and budget authorities about fatalities involving suicides.
  4. Evaluate and report on high risk factors, current practices, gaps in systematic and systemic responses, and barriers to safety and well-being of those considering suicide in your community.
  5. Develop and disseminate an annual report describing trends, risk factors, or patterns of suicide deaths, along with recommendations for changes in law, policy, or practice that will prevent future deaths by suicide.

Wisconsin Suicide Mortality Review Team (WSMR)

In 2024, through a partnership with the U.S. and Wisconsin Departments of Veterans Affairs, MCW received a grant to extend the work of SMR across the state of Wisconsin.
This effort includes:

  • Creation of a statewide SMR team
  • Providing technical assistance and expanding local county SMRs
  • Focusing on Veteran mental health over the two-year project period (2024-2026).
  • Data collection and analysis

This project is a collaboration of the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW), Wisconsin Department of Health Services: Division of Public Health (DHS), Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs, and U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

The team completed its first year in June 2026. To read about their accomplishments, view the 2025-2026 WSMR Annual Report (PDF).

Join the WSMR Team on November 6, 2026 from 10 a.m. - 1 p.m. as they celebrate their first year of work!

WSMR is a multidisciplinary review team that reviews suicide deaths of Veterans and identifies actionable recommendations to decrease harm and death across Wisconsin from suicide. This celebration will include networking, vendors sharing information, and a panel discussion. This event will occur at ThriveOn King in Milwaukee (2153 N. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, Milwaukee, WI 53212). For questions, email Sara Kohlbeck at skohlbeck@mcw.edu or Lindsay Fuss at lfuss@mcw.edu.

View the event agenda (PDF).

Locations of Current SMR Teams in Wisconsin

Map of locations of current SMR teams in Wisconsin
Map of current Suicide Mortality Review (SMR) teams across the State of Wisconsin.

Wisconsin Suicide Mortality Review Manual

The purpose of this reference manual is to establish and standardize the best practices and guiding principles for local suicide mortality review (SMR) teams. This guidebook was developed with input from multiple suicide review teams, representative of a diverse set of communities across Wisconsin. Teams looking to start their own work should use this manual as a guide.

View the Manual (PDF)

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