This is a selection of reports collected and shared, with edited highlights, to raise awareness of the intersection between racism, trauma, and suicidality.
- Young Black People Are Killing Themselves
The numbers are shocking. Young black people are making suicide attempts and dying by suicide at record high rates. A November 2019 Pediatrics study found the rate of suicide attempts for black youths shot up an alarming 73 percent from 1991 to 2017, while suicide attempts decreased 7.5 percent for white adolescents. Black boys also had a significant increase in the injuries they received from the attempts, which suggests that they are engaging in more lethal methods. Overall suicide deaths increased by 33 percent in the United States from 1999 to 2017, with rates increasing in all age groups, races, and ethnicities, and among men and women. However, the greatest rates of increase have been seen among adolescents and young adults. Black youths present cause for concern. This year the Journal of Community Health published a study showing that from 2001 to 2017, the rate of death by suicide for black boys ages 13 to 19 rose 60 percent, while the rate for black girls skyrocketed an astounding 182 percent.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/1...&pgtype=Homepage
- The association between different traumatic life events and suicidality
In this study, we found an increased risk of lifetime suicidality among individuals reporting lifetime interpersonal, childhood and sexual trauma, with stronger associations observed for men than for women. We furthermore found an association between experience of non-interpersonal trauma and suicidality among men. In addition, we found that while women more frequently reported lifetime depressive periods, men had a higher prevalence of suicidal outcomes…This study emphasizes the importance of interpersonal trauma as a major risk factor of suicidality and further indicates that trauma, especially non-interpersonal trauma, may be likely to be associated with suicidality among men. To reduce the risk of suicidal thoughts or behaviours, it may thus be beneficial for clinicians to routinely assess trauma history among patients seeking care for psychological problems but also to implicate preventive measures in society in relation to traumatic events.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6136384/
- Growing body of research indicates trauma care, suicide prevention go hand-in-hand
People who have experienced trauma have a higher risk of suicide. Such a link may seem intuitive – and it has also been corroborated by a number of studies – but many questions remain about when, how and why past trauma can lead to suicide. Ongoing research seeks to better understand the impact of trauma on suicide risk, explicate the pathway that leads from traumatic events to suicide, and improve care for trauma victims. According to the National Center for PTSD at the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, studies have shown that past childhood abuse, past sexual abuse or post-traumatic stress disorder are all predictors that an individual is at a higher risk of suicide. A 2015 study co-authored by HIPRC associate member Nancy Temkin, Ph.D., M.S., found that individuals with past spinal cord injuries had higher rates of suicide ideation and lifetime suicide attempts than the general population. Many types of trauma are considered to increase the risk of suicide, with trauma broadly defined along the lines of the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Criterion A on PTSD. By this definition, trauma can include experienced, threatened or witnessed death, serious injury or sexual violence, or even indirect exposure to “aversive details,” often through professional roles.
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