Research brief: Discrimination among black LGBTQ+ young people and suicide risk

There is a large body of research that links experiences of discrimination to adverse mental health outcomes and suicide attempts (Vargas et al., 2020). Though there is well-documented evidence of its harm, there is a lack of research focused on groups who routinely experience discrimination on the basis of their multiple marginalized identities, such as […]

Engaging Black youth in depression and suicide prevention treatment within urban schools: Study protocol for a randomized controlled pilot

Background: Depression continues to be an ongoing threat to adolescent well-being with Black adolescents being particularly vulnerable to greater burdens of depression as well as lower mental health service utilization. Black adolescents are likely to have untreated depression due to social network influences, varied perceptions of services and providers, or self-stigma associated with experiencing depressive symptoms. […]

Changing trends in suicide mortality and firearm involvement among black young adults in the United States, 1999-2019

The suicide rate among adolescents and young adults in the United States increased 57% between 2007 and 2018, from 6.8 to 10.7 deaths per 100 000 individuals. Recent research characterized as alarming the increases in overall suicide rates among young Black and other racial/ethnic minority populations. To assess the temporal trends in overall suicide and […]

Reasons for suicide in black young adults: A latent class analysis

Background: Suicides have increased among Black youth in the US, though it remains unclear if these trends persist into young adulthood. Further, even less is known about the reasons why individuals begin to consider suicide as a viable option. The current study aims to redress these gaps by identifying specific reasons for suicide among a sample […]

Research brief: Mental health of black transgender and nonbinary young people

Despite overall rates of suicidality among young people trending downward for the past 30 years, Black young people have experienced an increase in suicide attempts (Lindsey et al., 2019), with suicide rates among  Black young people increasing 37% between 2018 and 2021 (Stone & Mack, 2023). Due to the already existing higher rates of suicide […]

Black youth suicidal behavior: What we know and where we go from here (IN: Youth Suicide Prevention and Intervention, edited by J.P. Ackerman & L.M. Horowitz)

Research concerning Black youth suicide and suicidal behavior is limited, yet the rates of these behaviors continue to rise in this population of youth. In children, 5–12 years, Black youth are two times more likely to die by suicide than their White peers, and suicide attempts among Black adolescents have increased by 73%. Understanding the risk […]