Suicide Among Native Americans

Suicide is complex and has many varied risked factors. Attempts are most common between the ages of 16-18 [2]. Females are more likely to attempt and contemplate suicide, but males are more likely to complete suicide attempts [2]. Native Americans suffer from the highest rates of suicide [2]. Besides the secular characteristics of suicide, there are some

The social issue that I would like to address as a social worker is the epidemic of indigenous youth suicide in Canada. On the macro level, I believe this issue can be understood through two fundamental components: the residual effects of colonization trauma passed through generations and the effects of current colonial-based, neo-liberal institutional actions on indigenous youth.

Native Americans were colonized and forced to take on a lifestyle that was completely foreign to them. Even today, they are totally disenfranchised and forced to exist within a system that mandates their dependency on entities which actively discriminates against them. This systematic discrimination or racism, adversely affects the Native Americans in a way that causes conditions like deep depression, which leads to corruptible behavior like alcoholism, child neglect, and a high rate of suicide among young Natives. The environments of the reservations that they have been forced to exist on, in order to freely practice their natural way of life without the interference of Eurocentric mentality, have been compared to the conditions of third world countries.

The continuous trauma that they endured has negatively affected the mental health and physical health of the population. Native Americans are at higher risk for depression, physical/sexual abuse, domestic violence, substance abuse, and mental health issues (McLeigh, 2010). Native American youth are three times more likely to commit suicide than the average population. Native Americans in general are twice as likely to be diagnosed with depression and five times more likely to have alcoholism. Colonization not damaged natives mentally, but also brought harm to their physical health as Europeans brought diseases (measles, chicken pox, smallpox, etc) to America (McLeigh, 2010). In order for this population to be served to treat their many medical and mental health issues brought on by years of trauma, policies must be implemented to help Native Americans specifically. However, the reality is that natives mental health needs are often ignored (Gone, 2004). There have been policies that have attempted to meet the needs, but much more is needed. In the most recent action towards improving mental health services for natives, the Affordable Care Act of 2010 permanently gave authorization to the Indian Health Care Improvement Act (Ross, Garfield, Brown, & Raghavan, 2015). This policy will be discussed and analyzed to examine further needs for services in this

The usual causes, triggers as well as risk factors that are associated with suicide are poverty, trauma, substance abuse and relationship problems (Ridani et al., 2015). From 2001 to 2010, 4.2% of Aboriginal deaths was due to suicide while for all other Australians it only accounted for 1.6% of deaths (ABS, 2012). Furthermore, females of Indigenous Australian origin aged 15 to 19 years, committed suicide 5.9 times more than other female Australians while the ratio for male Indigenous people was 5.5 more than other male Australians and the suicide overall ratio for Indigenous people is twice more than that of non-Indigenous Australians. (ABS, 2012) A person is at an increased risk for suicide if they have mental health disorders and chronic diseases, are unemployed, isolation, social support is non-existent, history of depression and other behavioural factors as well (Evans & Brown,

Suicide attempts are highest among American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) females, followed by AI/AN males, and are lowest among African American and White adolescent males. Due to shame and the value placed on not looking weak in the African American community, some youth use less taboo ways of ending their lives. Wolfgang (1959) stated that, “victim-precipitated suicide is disproportionately represented among African American males.” For example, “In studies of officer-involved shootings, there appears to be evidence of suicidal intent in between 10% and 46% of cases” (Klinger, 2001). Therefore, due to cultural beliefs within the African American community, sometimes African Americans use victim-precipitated suicide as a more conventional way of ending their lives. The American Indian/Alaska Native group has also been

Secondly, the federal government of Canada funding towards suicide prevention programs in Aboriginal communities helps stop youth suicide. First Nation youths are 5 to 6 times more likely to commit suicide compared to non-aboriginal youths (Kassam, 2017). A community-based suicide prevention program is a key to helping stop the aboriginal youth suicide crisis. For instance, another northern Ontario First Nation community, Wapekeka, was a leader in suicide prevention (Kassam, 2017). Wapekeka First Nation’s suicide prevention program was working until the federal government cut funding towards the program and the spokesperson for Wapekeka First Nation, Joshua Frogg said, “twenty-two years we ran it until it drove us into a deficit. We couldn’t do it anymore.” (Kassam, 2017).

Since December of 2015, there has been an alarming rate of suicides to occur in Manitoba, Canada on the Cross Lake First Nation Indian Reserve. Since then six students have committed suicide while ten others have attempted it. Most of the people who have attempted suicide are ninth and tenth graders of that school and are currently on a suicide prevention list. The chief of the small community of only six thousand eight hundred individuals is calling a state of emergency. Shirley Robinson who is the chief told CNN, “There's so much hurt, there's so much pain. You can feel it in every direction of our nation. Only last year there was one suicide while in some of the recent past years there had been no suicides. The community said it is difficult

The newly acquired ideas were implemented in various Native American programs to improve the mental/physical health of all Native Americans. Most programs, however, base their ongoing work on four key concepts. . (Beal et al 2005) They are analyzing how alcohol and drugs affect the immediate family unit as well as how it affects relatives and friends physically, emotionally, and spiritually. What, if any of these affects are being carried down from one generation to another. Does alcohol set off any of the other affects such as drug abuse, mental illness et al? Finally, coming to the carefully scrutinized observation that alcoholism often co-exists in Indian communities with certain definite other problems like depression, self-hate, cultural shame, and stress-related acting out or inappropriate misconduct. (NADC 2011)These four main ideas are still used today to further identify and improve mental health conditions among the Native Americans.

Aboriginal people represent less than 3% of the total population in BC. Yet, they account for more than 9% of all suicides in BC (Chandler). The numbers of suicides amongst aboriginal youth are even more alarming – nearly one-fourth of all youth suicides in BC are committed by aboriginals and more than half of all aboriginal suicides are committed by youth (Chandler). The fact that indigenous communities in Canada have the highest rate of suicide of any culturally identifiable group in the world implies that these alarming statistics may not solely be a result of aboriginal communities belonging to a minority cultural group. I will attempt to build a speculative hypothesis behind the significantly high suicide rates amongst aboriginal

Native Americans have the highest suicide and depression rate. Like Little Tree, Junior, and the NPR Navajo are three Indian’s and a tribe. All of these Indians had to deal with the white men judging and being racist towards them. Like in the book Little Tree when him and his grandfather were walking back home, and a car stopped them and asked for directions she called them foreigners, because grandpa was trying to be polite and the girl did not realize it. Another huge problem that these Native Americans relied on the Government, but the Government did not support them any kind of way. They took over their land and forced them to live on reservations. Besides Little Tree he lived in the mountains. But even though he lived in the mountains his grandparents and him still have’d to deal with the Government.

Native Americans on the reservations are at socially and economically disadvantage compared to persons who reside in metropolitan cities. Life advancement opportunities and individual accountability for better living standards are almost non-existence in many Native American communities. The environment that is around young adolescents are very

The inability to make and prolong relationships leads to a sense of isolation, and contributes to poor mental health and depression. Hospitalisation rates for self-harm are representative of mental illness, depression and stress – and in 2006, Indigenous Australians were 3 times more likely to be hospitalized for severe self-harm than other Australians. In 2011, 80% of suicides of the ages 19 to 24 were

According to the New York Times, “at least 103 attempts by people ages 12 to 24 occurred from December to March [in Pine Ridge]…emergency medical workers…say they have been called to the scenes of suicide attempts, sometimes several times a day.” Facing this obvious crisis on the Reservation, any sanguine citizen would be of the belief that the government has redoubled its efforts to assist the community of Pine Ridge in stopping the death of Oglala Lakota children. But, as those who are more acquainted with the status quo on American Indian reservations would expect, the mental health system present on the Reservation remains tragically

While discovering theories and research by sociologist Emile Durkheim, I was able to see a clear connection to how these theories could be applied to the amount of suicides to those of first nation decent. Considering citizens from first nations groups have been estimated to be eleven times more likely to commit suicide, there are underlying factors of why this may be. Durkheim’s theory states that suicide is a sociological issue and as we have seen there are many ways society could affect ones emotional state.