Suicidality among sexual minority adults: Gender, age, and race/ethnicity differences

Introduction Lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals have elevated suicide risk, but there is little information available about how this risk may vary by gender, age, and race/ethnicity. Methods This study examined past-year suicide thoughts, plans, and attempts among adult respondents to the 2015–2019 National Surveys on Drug Use and Health (pooled N=191,954). Logistic regression was […]

Childhood maltreatment and suicidal thoughts and behavior in young adults: The role of limited access to emotion regulation strategies

Background: Childhood maltreatment strongly predicts suicidality in young adulthood, which is increasingly common among Latina/o and Asian Americans. However, greater attention to modifiable explanatory factors is needed, particularly in ethnically minoritized populations. Aims: The current study evaluated whether the association between childhood maltreatment and suicidality may be accounted for by emotion regulation difficulties among a sample of young […]

Disproportionate burden of violence: Explaining racial and ethnic disparities in potential years of life lost among homicide victims, suicide decedents, and homicide-suicide perpetrators

Research indicates that the burden of violent death in the United States is disproportionate across racial and ethnic groups. Yet documented disparities in rates of violent death do not capture the full extent of this inequity. Recent studies examining race-specific rates of potential years of life lost—a summary measure of premature mortality—indicate that persons of […]

Notes from the field: Firearm suicide rates, by race and ethnicity United States, 2019-2022

Suicide, including firearm suicide, remains a substantial public health concern in the United States. During the previous 2 decades, overall suicide rates and firearm suicide rates have risen by approximately one third, approaching 50,000 overall suicides during 2022, including approximately 27,000 firearm suicides (1). Firearm suicides account for approximately one half of all suicides, and […]

The intersection of race, ethnicity, and gender and the prevalence of suicidal thoughts and behaviors

The prevalence of suicidal thoughts and behaviors across distinct intersections of race/ethnicity and gender among adolescents remains understudied. The current study seeks to address this important gap in suicide scholarship using a statewide representative sample of U.S. Florida middle school and high school adolescents. Data drawn from the 2022 Florida Youth Substance Abuse Survey (FYSAS) […]

Investigating the role of suicidality and ethnic identity among Black adolescents: A latent profile analysis

Objective: Suicide among Black adolescent youth has steadily increased in recent years, yet few studies describe how facets of social identity shape suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STBs) during this critical stage of development. Ethnic identity represents an underexplored, yet important element of social identity among Black youth that may contribute to differential associations with STBs. This […]

Using an intersectional approach to explore the lived mental health experiences of traveller men affected by suicide in Ireland

Rates of suicide are seven times higher among Traveller men, an Indigenous ethnic minority group in Ireland, compared with non-Traveller men. Several factors are implicated, including racism, social exclusion, discrimination, inadequate accommodation, unemployment, and lower educational attainment. Systemic and cultural barriers inhibit Traveller men from seeking support. This study addresses a gap in the literature […]

Acculturation and suicide‑related risk in ethnoracially minoritized youth in the US: A scoping review and content analysis of the empirical evidence

Purpose: Among Asian-American/Pacific Islander, Hispanic/Latinx, and Black youth, the US born have higher risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviors (attempts and death-by-suicide) than first-generation migrants. Research has focused on the role of acculturation, defined as the sociocultural and psychological adaptations from navigating multiple cultural environments. Methods: Using content analysis, we conducted a scoping review on acculturation-related experiences […]

Suicide rates amongst individuals from ethnic minority backgrounds: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Background Existing evidence suggests that some individuals from ethnic minority backgrounds are at increased risk of suicide compared to their majority ethnic counterparts, whereas others are at decreased risk. We aimed to estimate the absolute and relative risk of suicide in individuals from ethnic minority backgrounds globally. Methods Databases (Medline, Embase, and PsycInfo) were searched […]

Suicide in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the city of Sarajevo: With special reference to ethnicity

Background: Besides the war experience (1992–1995), Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) constitutes an interesting area for studies on suicidal behavior from an ethnic and religious perspective with its mixed ethnic population of Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats. Aims: The study investigates suicide in BiH and the capital city of Sarajevo before (1985–1991) and after the war (1998–2006), […]

Resilience to self-harm: A scoping review of protective factors that aid in recovery among marginalized young people

Background: Although a wide range of studies discuss prevalence and risk factors associated with self-harm, protective factors that are equally important are rarely explored. Moreover, much of our understanding of young individuals who engage in self-harm come from studies conducted in Western countries with very little emphasis on marginalized groups. Aim: This scoping review identifies […]

Notes from the field: Recent changes in suicide rates, by race and ethnicity and age group United States, 2021

Suicide is a serious public health problem in the United States. After 2 consecutive years of declines in suicide (47,511 in 2019 and 45,979 in 2020), 2021 data indicate an increase in suicide to 48,183, nearly returning to the 2018  peak (48,344) with an age-adjusted rate of 14.1 suicides per 100,000 population (versus 14.2 in […]

Suicide risk among immigrants and ethnic minorities: A literature overview

Recent studies have demonstrated that immigrants and ethnic minorities may be at higher risk of suicidal behaviour as compared to the general population. We conducted a literature search to identify studies in English from 1980 to 2017 related to suicide risk among immigrants and ethnic minorities. Six hundred and seventy-eight reports were screened, and 43 […]

Trends in suicide rates by race and ethnicity among members of the United States Army

Efforts were focused on identifying differences in suicide rates and time-dependent hazard rate trends, overall and within age groups, by race and ethnicity among United States Army members who returned from an index deployment (October 2007 to September 2014). This retrospective cohort study was conducted using an existing longitudinal database, the Substance Use and Psychological […]

Suicidality, sexual orientation, and race/ethnicity: Results from a U.S. representative adolescent sample

Objective: We examined sadness/hopelessness and suicide among racial/ethnic and sexual minority youth (SMY). Methods: 2017 Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) data on sadness/hopelessness and suicide were analyzed among White, Black, and Hispanic/Latino youth. Results: A main effect of sexual minority (SM) identity emerged for sadness/hopelessness, suicidal ideation, suicide plan, suicide attempts, and injurious attempts; SMY reported increased risk […]

Racial/ethnic discrimination and suicide-related risk in a treatment-seeking group of ethnoracially minoritized adolescents

Introduction and aims Despite growing evidence demonstrating the negative mental health effects of racism-related experiences, racial/ethnic discrimination is seldom examined in youth suicide risk. The present study tested the association between racial/ethnic discrimination and well-supported correlates of suicide-related risk including emotion reactivity and dysregulation, and severity of psychiatric symptoms in a sample of ethnoracially minoritized […]

Examining discrepant reports of adolescents’ self-injurious thoughts and behaviors: A focus on racial and ethnic minority families

Introduction Adolescents and their parents do not always see eye to eye. This principle applies to multi-informant reports of adolescents’ self-injurious thoughts and behaviors. Although prior work has revealed the presence of parent-adolescent discrepant reports, we have little insight into exactly who is most likely to display such discrepancies. To address this knowledge gap, the present investigation […]

Race, age, and lack of insurance increase risk of suicide attempt in trauma patients

Objective The overall rate of suicide between 1999 and 2017 increased by 33% in the United States. We sought to examine suicide attempts in the trauma patient population, hypothesizing that in adult trauma patients race and lack of insurance status would be predictors of suicide attempt. Method The Trauma Quality Improvement Program (2010–2016) was queried […]

Ethnic and sexual identity-related inequalities in adolescent health and well-being in a national population-based study

Purpose: This study employed an intersectional framework to examine impact of inequalities related to sexual minority (SM) and ethnic minority (EM) identities in risk for health, well-being, and health-related behaviors in a nationally representative sample. Methods: Participants included 9789 (51% female) adolescents aged 17 years from the U.K.-wide Millennium Cohort Study, with data on self-identified sexual and […]

Suicidal ideation and behaviors among Irish Travellers presenting for emergency care: Ethnicity as a risk factor

Background: Suicide is a serious problem in the Traveller community, with rates estimated at 11%: over 6 times that of the general population. Aims: We aimed to establish the prevalence and correlates of suicidal ideation (SI) and self-harm (SH) among Irish Travellers. Method: This was an observational cross-sectional cohort study of patients presenting with SH and SI to a tertiary […]

A question of justice: Critically researching suicide with Indigenous studies of affect, biosociality, and land-based relations

This paper considers how Indigenous studies can inform the evolution of critical research on suicide. Aligned with critiques of mainstream suicidology, these methodological approaches provide a roadmap for structural analysis of complex systems and logics in which the phenomenon of suicide emerges. Moving beyond mere naming of social determinants of suicide and consistent with calls […]

Trends in suicide rates by race and ethnicity in the United States

Introduction The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported a decrease in the 2019 suicide rate, from 14.2 per 100 000 individuals in 2018 to 13.9 per 100 000 individuals in 2019, representing 833 fewer suicides.1 This is the first national year-over-year decrease since 1999, but efforts need to consider trends among subgroups. Growing concerns regarding increasing […]

Unrecognised self-injury mortality (SIM) trends among racial/ethnic minorities and women in the USA

Aim To assess whether an enhanced category combining suicides with nonsuicide drug self-intoxication fatalities more effectively captures the burden of self-injury mortality (SIM) in the USA among US non-Hispanic black and Hispanic populations and women irrespective of race/ethnicity. Methods This observational study used deidentified national mortality data for 2008–2017 from the CDC’s Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting […]