Acculturation and Acculturative Stress as Indicators for Suicide Risk Among African Americans

The literature on African American suicide & the acculturation literature were examined to derive a possible explanation for increases in suicide among African American men & apparent resilience for African American women. Historically, African Americans were believed to be unaffected by suicide because of protective factors in embedded in the culture. However, minority mental health investigators have found acculturation sometimes leads to negative consequences for individuals from ethnic minority backgrounds. Accordingly, acculturation & acculturative phenomena are proposed as a model to shed light on African American male suicide as African Americans increasingly engage mainstream values, beliefs, & practices in the absence of traditional protective factors. (65 refs.) JA