Conceptual, Methodological, and Sociocultural Issues in Black Youth Suicide: Implications for Assessment and Early Intervention

Journal of Black Psychology

2006

109

The purpose of this study was to examine African Americans' lay beliefs and attributions toward suicide. The Attitudes Toward Suicide Scale, Life Ownership Orientation Questionnaire, Stigma Questionnaire, and Suicide Ideation Questionnaire were administered to 251 undergraduate college students. Beliefs about stigma associated with suicide were comparable across ethnic groups. However, African American college students were significantly less likely than European American college students were to attribute suicide to interpersonal problems and to report that the individual or government is responsible for life. African American students were significantly more likely to report that God is responsible for life. These findings have important implications for suicide risk and also for developing culturally appropriate interventions.Keywords lay theory; suicide; beliefs; attributions; African AmericanThe low suicide rate among African Americans has been attributed in part to long-standing cultural values and beliefs that resist suicidal behavior as a problem-solving alternative (e.g., Gibbs, 1997). However, suicide risk, along with other public health problems, is typically understudied in African American populations, and empirical support for widely held assumptions is sparse. Challenges to understanding suicide in the African American community are compounded by limitations (e.g., false positives) that plague suicide science and prediction of high-risk behavior in the United States. 1 Despite widely held speculation that suicide among African Americans is buffered by cultural beliefs, empirical literature that addresses African Americans' lay attributions for suicide is limited.The purpose of this article is to explore African American lay beliefs about suicide. An interesting question is to ascertain whether these lay beliefs are culturally specific to African

Section: African American Suicide: a Public Health Problemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lay Theories of Suicide: An Examination of Culturally Relevant Suicide Beliefs and Attributions among African Americans and European Americans

Walker

Lester

Journal of Black Psychology

2006

109

“…Regarding protective factors for African-American youth, Gibbs (1988) cited strong kinship ties and social support. Others have found that family support and cohesive families protected African-American college students from suicidal ideation and depression (Harris & Molock, 2000;Kimbrough, Molock, & Walton, 1996).…”

Section: Risk Factor Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Human behavior theories to explain stressors and health risk behaviors are abundant and many offer important concepts for explaining many risk factors associated with maladaptive behaviors. However, single theoretical approaches, like those mentioned above, do not account for the complex relationship between suicide and AfricanAmerican social or cultural beliefs about suicide, phenomenological and historical experiences with physical and psychological strain, unique expression of depressive symptomology, and mental health service use history or involvement in other high-risk behaviors (Davis, 1982;Gibbs, 1988;Poussaint & Alexander, 2000). Instead, the recent increase in suicide risk for young African-Americans is best explained from a historical, phenomenological, generational, gendered, and a multi-level perspective (Joe, 2003).…”

Section: Plausible Explanations and Hypotheses Of Black Suicidementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Scholars have pointed to several psychosocial risk factors, including: frustration, rage, despair, alienation, fatalistic behavior, social deprivation, and immense social stress associated with unemployment, racism, and poverty; family disorganization (Davis, 1980b;Hendin, 1969); external restraint and status integration (Davis, 1980a;Gibbs & Martin, 1964;Henry & Short, 1954;Maris, 1969); the breakdown in traditional social institutions, such as the church, family, and schools (Davis, 1980a(Davis, , 1982Gibbs, 1988;Smith & Carter, 1986); migration (Davis, 1980a;Prudhomme, 1938); and living in northern or urban areas, substance abuse, mental disorders, homosexuality (Rotherman-Borus, Hunter, & Rosario, 1994), and delinquency (Gibbs, 1997). Status integration hypothesis-namely, assimilation and acculturation into mainstream culture frameworks, based on Durkheim's work (1951)-are the most prominent explanations for changes in the rates of suicide completion among African-Americans (Gibbs, 1988;Henry & Short, 1954;Maris, 1969;Prudhomme, 1938). There is moderate, yet inconclusive, evidence to support this hypothesis for young African-Americans' suicidal behavior (Burr, Hartman, & Matteson, 1999;Gould, Fisher, Parides, Flory, & Shaffer, 1996;Watt & Sharp, 2002).…”

Section: Plausible Explanations and Hypotheses Of Black Suicidementioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Implications of National Suicide Trends for Social Work Practice with Black Youth

Child Adolesc Soc Work J

2006

Although homicide is the leading cause of death for African-Americans aged 15-24, suicide is silently claiming the lives of many African-American youth, males in particular. Given the disproportionate number of African-American adolescents in many of the primary human service institutions, it is important to increase social workers' understanding of the nature and trends in selfdestructive behaviors of this population. This paper presents the descriptive epidemiological trend data on African-American adolescent suicide completion and parasuicidal behavior, reviews current explanatory hypotheses, highlights important risk and protective factors, and outlines several culturally-congruent practice guidelines for working with suicidal African-Americans adolescents.

“…Coping styles refers to the cognitive and behavioral efforts employed to manage the adverse demands of the person-in-environment relationship that are appraised as stressful as well as the emotions they generate (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984, p. 19). New generations of Blacks have been raised amid extreme developmental contexts that often leave many without access to traditional symbols of hope (Gibbs, 1988) and the adaptive coping styles (e.g., religious coping, external attribution orientation) that helped many in earlier generations face the challenges of adverse life circumstances and to have lower rates of suicidal behavior. Currently, investigations into generational differences in Blacks' coping styles and suicide risk are marginal in the field of Black suicide.…”

Section: Possible Explanations For Cohort Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Explaining Changes in the Patterns of Black Suicide in the United States From 1981 to 2002: An Age, Cohort, and Period Analysis

Journal of Black Psychology

2006

To explore the different trends of suicide incidence among Blacks and possible contributing factors, the current study compared national epidemiologic data of suicide in the United States from 1981 to 2002. For the first time, period and birth-cohort effects on the incidence trends of Black suicide were evaluated using an age-period-cohort analysis. Cohort effects were found for males and females, suggesting that younger generations of Blacks are at higher risk. If younger cohorts carry their increased suicide risk into later life, then the recent decline in Black suicide rates will be reversed.The results of the current study are only interpretable in terms of group-level characteristics and population suicide rates and not individual-level characteristics. The possible explanation and the implications for prevention and future research are discussed. KeywordsBlacks; suicide; trends; cohort effects; APC analysis In recent years, suicide has emerged as a crucial health issue for Blacks, particularly among youth (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 1998; Institute of Medicine, 2002; U.S. Public Health Service, 2000). For the purposes of this article, "Black" is used as a label for Americans of African descent and refers to ethnicity and not nationality. Although suicide has traditionally been viewed as a problem that affected more Whites, there have been significant changes in the patterns of suicide among Blacks (Griffith & Bell, 1989;Joe & Kaplan, 2001), namely an increase in the rate of suicide completion (Garlow, Purselle, & Heninger, 2005) and nonfatal suicidal behavior (Joe & Marcus, 2003) among younger Blacks. Suicide is now the third-leading cause of death for Black adolescents aged 15 to 24 (Kochanek, Murphy, Anderson, & Scott, 2004). Despite increasing recognition of the public health significance of these changes, explanations for this phenomenon remain speculative and incomplete. Given that the Black population is projected to double by 2050, the creation of evidence-based interventions to keep succeeding cohorts of younger Blacks from suicide is an extremely important public health objective.Why were previous generations of Blacks able to endure centuries of epic cruelty, also managing to avoid succumbing to hopelessness and depression, whereas recent generations experience higher rates of suicide, especially among the young? Suicide research on people of African heritage is at an early stage of development. Only recently have researchers been able to outline a more detailed profile of Blacks most at risk for suicide completion. Conwell, 2004;Garlow, 2002;Marzuk et al., 1992), poor social support (Joe et al., in press;Kaslow et al., 2004;Kimbrough, Molock, & Walton, 1996), family dysfunction (Fernquist, 2004;Ialongo et al., 2002;O'Donnell, O'Donnell, Wardlaw, & Stueve, 2004;Summerville, Kaslow, Abbate, & Cronan, 1994), and access to firearms (Joe & Kaplan, 2002;Kaplan & Geling, 1998). In spite of such empirical advances, little is known as to why Blacks have experienced chang...