Suicide prevention hotlines in California: Diversity in services, structure, and organization and the potential challenges ahead.

Suicide prevention hotlines in California respond to callers in need and reduce caller distress, but could improve their services and reach more users by expanding digital offerings such as chat services and establishing better programs to monitor and improve the quality of their services, according to new studies from the RAND Corporation. Evaluating nearly a dozen hotlines that received state support, researchers also recommend that suicide prevention hotlines better integrate with health care services and systems, and increase their ability to seamlessly refer callers to appropriate resources.