CAIRO, Ga. — Grady County residents took part in a grant survey to help bring awareness and assistance to prevent suicide in the community.

The survey dealt with the general public’s thoughts on suicide.

Dustin Infinger, a community involvement specialist for HEARTS for Families who helped create the questionnaire, said there were approximately 150 respondents by the time the survey period ended Monday.

“It’s a decent sample size for us to get a fairly good idea of the community’s views on the issue,” he said.

While the data collected from the survey has yet to be fully analyzed, Infinger said at least one common theme he has noticed throughout his time in Grady County was a lack of awareness about how to seek suicide prevention resources.

“There’s not a lot of resources and there’s not a lot of awareness of the resources that do exist from most of the population from what I can tell,” he said. “From what I’ve gathered, I think the youth community is much more open and aware when it comes to mental health, depression and suicide. It’s much more on their radar than it is in the adult community.”

Infinger said the report will provide a starting point from which a larger suicide prevention campaign can be built around.

“The data will give us kind of a jumping-off point to see who’s thinking about it and in what ways and what categories,” he said. “If we do billboards or if we try to do something on social media we’ll know how to tailor our message to particular groups. It’ll give us a lot more to work with, that way we’re coming at it with some strategy, not just creating one message for all people.”

Without the data, whatever educational tools may be needed for particular groups wouldn’t be known.

“Say we decide to do a social media campaign to reduce stigma,” Infinger said. “We want to know — what is that stigma? How do different groups perceive the issues?” 

Infinger said he planned to send the survey responses to an internal HEARTS analyst in Atlanta, who will review and compare them to national data provided by the Harris Poll.

That comparison is important, Infinger said, because it will reveal if there is anything in Grady County which makes its own attempts to deal with suicide prevention unique.

Any disparities found between the county’s data and national data will be used as Infinger prepares to implement the next steps of a larger suicide prevention project.

The HEARTS analysts also will compile the data into a report, likely within the next several days, which will be used to help select an approach that fits Grady County for eventual implementation.

“We’re going to look for successful, evidence-based suicide prevention initiatives that have been used in other communities in the past,” Infinger said. 

In particular, Infinger said when the data is compared nationally it can be used to identify successful programs in other communities with similar data to determine what strategies to implement for different populations.

The survey attempted to reach a cross-section of the county’s population, employing a variety of methods to attract different age groups and ethnicities.

“We want to definitely get a snapshot of the entire community of Grady County because this project isn’t for one particular group, it’s for the whole community,” Infinger said. “If we look at it initially with a pretty wide lens it’s really going to let us know what the general perception of the issue is.”

To collect an even wider variety of responses for the survey, Infinger employed a native Spanish speaker to seek participants from the Latino community, which makes up approximately 20 percent of the county’s population.

While reaching different economic statuses was not a priority in conducting the survey, Infinger said by visiting various public spaces such as coffee shops, churches, the volunteer fire department and a peer support group for individuals with developmental disabilities he was able to collect the thoughts of a good mixture of county citizens.

Infinger was part of the group that helped found Start Teaching Early Prevention (STEP) Up Grady County, a new suicide prevention pilot group, with the help of a state grant.

Organized by STEP Up, the survey is the first stage in implementing a data-driven plan which will be designed specifically to teach suicide prevention.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s Strategic Prevention Framework (SPF), originally designed to treat substance abuse, outlines a cyclical five-point plan which begins with gathering data.

Primary data from the survey is then compiled and evaluated to determine what areas of need there may be in the county so that they may be addressed.

Under the SPF, the community is surveyed again annually to assess if public perceptions have changed based on STEP Up’s efforts, providing vital feedback to determine if a change in strategies is needed.

“If our strategy this year isn’t changing data in the way we’re trying to change it, then we might switch gears and do something different next year,” Infinger said.

STEP Up plans to meet sometime next month to discuss the survey’s results and plan their next steps. No date has been set for the meeting, which is open to the public.