Suicidality in African American Men: The Roles of Southern Residence, Religiosity, and Social Support

Abstract

The rise in suicide by African Americans in the United States is directly attributable to the dramatic, nearly three-fold increase in suicide rates of African American males. Gibbs (1997) hypothesized high social support, religiosity, and southern residence are protective factors against suicidality for Black people. This hypothesis was tested among 5,125 participants from the National Comorbidity Survey; 299 were African American males. In this study we hypothesized that there would be significantly lower suicidality in the South, and social support and religiosity would mediate this relationship. Our results indicate that Southern region is indeed a significant predictor of suicidal symptoms in African American men, such that suicidal symptoms were lower in the South, but religiosity and social support did not account for this effect. Other potential mediators were also examined.

Ethnic differences in prevalence and correlates of self-harm behaviors in a treatment-seeking sample of emerging adults

“…For example, family conflict was predictive of SAs in Latinos (Fortuna et al, 2007) and of suicidal thoughts and attempts among Asian American individuals (Cheng et al, 2010). Higher social support was also associated with lower suicidality among African American men (Wingate et al, 2005). By assessing engagement in NSSI and SAs over time, one study of Norwegian high school students reported that satisfaction with social support protected against the onset of NSSI, whereas parental care protected against the onset of SAs (Wichström, 2009).…”

The Role of Positive and Negative Social Exchanges Between Adolescents, their Peers and Family as Predictors of Suicide Ideation

“…This has led to the widely accepted notion that negatively perceived social exchanges unfavorably affects adolescent well-being and that a negatively perceived peer network, more so than a negatively perceived family network, is related to adolescent malfunction (Garnefski and Doets 2000). There is also some evidence that protective factors within the family, including caring and support, may increase resilience and buffer adverse environmental influences as demonstrated with African American teens (Meadows et al 2005;Wingate et al 2005) and hospital-based adolescents (Donald et al 2006). Although depression is the largest single risk factor for teenage suicide behavior, there is evidence that interpersonal relationship difficulties make a significant independent contribution to this risk.…”

Religious Orientation and Its Relationship to Suicidality: A Study in One of the Least Religious Countries

“…Some studies have provided evidence that religiosity (including religious orientation) is protective against suicidality (Cook 2014). Although religiosity has been hypothesized to be protective against suicidality, in some circumstances this effect did not replicate in other independent samples (e.g., Bagley and Ramsay 1989;Lester and Francis 1993;Lester and Walker 2017;Malihe and Motahare 2016;Taylor et al 2011;Wingate et al 2005). These inconsistent findings, as well as findings which appeared to be controversial and diverging to dominant hypotheses holding that religiosity is protective against suicidality, may be accounted for by the different aspects between different constructs of religiosity and within each construct of religiosity (e.g., intrinsic religious orientation and extrinsic religious orientation are two different aspects of religious orientation according to Allport and Ross) which function differentially as positive or negative factors.…”