National Suicide Prevention Hotline (988 Lifeline) Response Rates by State, July 2022-September 2025
GAO-26-108114
Suicide is one of the leading causes of death in the United States, resulting in over 49,000 deaths in 2023—or about one death every 11 minutes. Overall, suicide rates increased about 31% from 2003 through 2023.
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) oversees the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (or “988 Lifeline,” previously known as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline). It is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It provides free and confidential emotional support to people experiencing suicidal crisis, substance misuse, or emotional distress.
People can call or text 988 or initiate a chat on the 988 Lifeline’s website. Their calls, texts, and chats are routed to crisis contact centers in their state or territory, which are staffed with crisis counselors.
The maps in the interactive below show the following data for contacts routed through the 988 Lifeline to in-state crisis contact centers from July 2022 through September 2025:
- Answer rate: Percentage of contacts routed to in-state crisis contact centers that were answered by in-state crisis counselors
- Average time to answer: Average length of time (minutes: seconds) it took for contacts to be answered by in-state crisis counselors after they were routed to these centers
How to interact with this graphic:
From the drop-down menu, select a contact type (call, text, chat) and measure (answer rate, average time to answer). Then, hover over a state to see its contact volume, answer rate, and average time to answer. The map automatically animates to show the change over time and stops at the most recent time period. Click on the stop button or use the slider to pause on a specific time period. (You can also download the complete data file for all measures by state.)
National Suicide Prevention Hotline (988 Lifeline) Response Rates by State, July 2022-September 2025
Source: GAO analysis of aggregated monthly SAMHSA data | GAO-26-108114
- The data in this interactive graphic reflects aggregated monthly 988 Lifeline performance data provided by SAMHSA. The data covers July 2022 (when the 988 number went into effect) through September 2025. For additional details about the data, see our report.
- SAMHSA primarily measures 988 Lifeline capacity performance in terms of contact volume (number of contacts), answer rates, and average time to answer, according to SAMHSA and 988 Lifeline network administrator officials.
- Answer rates reflect in-state answer rates and do not include contacts rerouted to national backup crisis contact centers. Calls, texts, and chats to in-state crisis contact centers should generally be rerouted to national backup crisis contact centers if they are not answered within 2 minutes, according to SAMHSA officials.
- States shown in beige did not have in-state crisis contact center support available for the contact type (call, chat, or text) selected during the month shown. The contacts would have been rerouted to national backup crisis contact centers.
- The downloadable data file includes aggregated monthly 988 Lifeline data on contact volume, answer rates, and average time to answer for 50 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The data does not include performance data for specialty services, such as the Spanish language service, nor for the national backup crisis contact centers.