National Association of Retrospective Fatality Analysts
Putting Suicide Loss Survivors First. Supporting Coroners, Clinicians, and Communities.
RFA supports healing, understanding, and prevention across communities. While suicide loss survivors are at the heart of our work, we also support professionals and systems seeking to respond more effectively to suicide and sudden loss.
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You are the reason this work exists.
When someone dies by suicide, those left behind are often overwhelmed by questions: Why did this happen? Was there something I missed? Could anything have changed the outcome?
RFA offers a way to explore those questions in a structured, compassionate way. It is not therapy, but it can be deeply therapeutic. By piecing together the events, systems, and stressors that contributed to the death, RFA helps survivors understand the broader context and begin to rebuild their lives.
We also help connect you to local, state, or national resources that offer peer support, grief care, and long-term healing. You are not alone, and you are not meant to carry this without support.
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Clarity matters, especially when the death is undetermined.
In some cases, it is not immediately clear whether a death was accidental, intentional, or due to other causes. RFA can assist with complex or equivocal deaths by exploring psychosocial histories, behavioral patterns, and contextual risk factors.
RFA offers coroners and medical examiners a non-clinical, narrative-based tool that can support their own determination process or provide supplemental information in cases where intent is difficult to establish.
We do not replace forensic or medical investigation, but we collaborate with professionals in these roles to offer a fuller picture, particularly when families are seeking answers or when official classification is uncertain.
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You work to prevent suicide at the population level. RFA helps you do it better.
Too often, prevention strategies are based on generalized risk factors or outdated assumptions. RFA grounds suicide prevention in the real stories of real people.
We help public health departments and coalitions understand not just who died, but also why, how, and what could have made a difference. That insight can lead to more targeted outreach, improved access to care, stronger policy, and earlier intervention.
RFA helps shift suicide prevention from awareness alone to system-level change driven by lived experience and context.
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Your mission is to prevent future deaths. RFA provides the detail you need to act.
Whether you're reviewing suicides, overdoses, or violent deaths, your work depends on having accurate, complete information. RFA adds nuance to your data by helping you understand lived experience, not just the circumstances of death.
We support review teams by providing case narratives, system touchpoints, and missed opportunities that are often left out of standard reports. The result is a clearer understanding of where and how systems failed, and what can be done to prevent similar outcomes.
RFA informs recommendations that are not only evidence-based but also grounded in the human experience of loss.
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Not sure where you fit? You're in the right place.
We work with educators, crisis responders, behavioral health teams, military leaders, spiritual leaders, and others who want to better understand and respond to suicide in their communities.
If you’ve experienced a loss in your workplace, neighborhood, or school, or if you’re responsible for guiding others through one, RFA can help. It offers a structured way to understand the factors that contributed to a death and to identify ways your system or community can respond more effectively.
Even if you’re just beginning to explore this work, you are welcome here. Reach out, and we’ll help you figure out whether RFA is the right fit.
Let’s Talk.
Not sure if RFA is right for your situation? We’re happy to listen and help you explore next steps.