The second objective was to examine changes in the prevalence of suicidal ideation and protective factors during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study was determined as not human subjects research by the University of North Carolina at Charlotte Institutional Review Board, as data were not directly obtained by these researchers through intervention/interaction, and identifiable private information was not utilized. Future research should attempt to monitor adolescents’ suicidal behaviors over time to pinpoint factors (cultural, social, and emotional) that influence their responses and seek to understand protective factors for intersecting identities that may exist. Having this distinction could offer clues into why adolescents in specific locales are more likely to consider, plan, or attempt suicide based on the abundance or lack of resources (mental, physical, and emotional) that are located either in the school or in the community. First, the missing data is not at random, as suicide is still considered a sensitive/taboo subject to discuss. Based on our analysis, we encourage states to add additional questions and then disaggregate their adolescent suicide data regularly (at a minimum yearly).
DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT
While many factors place minority groups at risk of suicide, effective mental health care, culturally sensitive therapy and a connectedness to community can be crucial preventative factors. To our knowledge, this is the first Canadian study using population survey data to study suicidal behaviors and protective factors on social support and access to care among sexual and gender minority populations at a national level covered all age groups of the population. Finally, modifiable factors that might reduce risks of suicidality, such as social support and health care access 8, 38, 39, have not been adequately examined in population-based studies of sexual and gender minority groups. This study aimed to assess prevalence and disparities in non-fatal suicidality and potential protective factors related to social support and health care access among sexual and gender minority youth and adults and their heterosexual and cisgender counterparts in Canada. Efforts to expand mental health services in schools, including suicide risk screening tools developed for use in schools (53), suicide prevention programs, and the expansion of school-based mental health clinics, could help address the unmet mental health needs of youth of color. Therefore, racial disparities create major barriers to quality care at every decision point along the suicide prevention continuum through which youth of color interface with potential gateways to mental health services.
• Sexual and gender minority populations had a higher prevalence of suicidal ideation, plans, and attempts, compared with heterosexual and cisgender populations, regardless of sex or age group. The prevalence of suicidality was higher among the sexual minority populations compared with the heterosexual population, and the prevalence was highest among the bisexual population, regardless of sex or age group. Sexual and gender minority populations experience elevated risks for suicidality.
National Strategy for Suicide Prevention Internet.
A new report released by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) shows that while suicide rates between 1999 and 2017 rose for nearly all racial and ethnic groups analyzed, disparities among those groups are substantial. Given that suicide rates have changed significantly over time, the inclusion of data spanning a wide period may in part contribute to the large amount of heterogeneity observed. Given that ethnic minority groups make up a small proportion of the overall population, and the number of suicide deaths in this group are likely to be small in comparison to the ethnic majority population the standardised mortality ratio is likely to be equivalent to a RR. To avoid exclusion of these studies which presented only absolute rates from our RR synthesis, we calculated a standardised mortality ratio using the WHO suicide rate estimates and assumed this would be the equivalent to a RR. Suggesting that the apparent reduction in risk in other ethnic minority groups might be a consequence of systemic barriers rather than a true risk reduction.
Mental health resources for Asian communities
Among its funding opportunities, OMH offers grants for projects aimed at reducing health disparities and improving services. https://drexel.edu/counselingandhealth/counseling-center/cultural-identity-resources/latinx The datasets analyzed during the current study are available in the Statistics Canada Research Data Centres with data record number 3226. Scales that have been developed for social support and health care access 66, 67 were not available in the CCHS.
- Before we explore some of the efforts to address minority mental health locally and globally, we must look at the factors that have resulted in education and treatment inequities among minority populations.
- Despite these factors, we, as clinicians, have an opportunity to optimize suicide prevention for every patient, at every encounter.
- The Connecticut Suicide Advisory Board (CTSAB) per legislation (CGS Chapter 319, 17a-52) is the single state-level advisory board that addresses suicide prevention, intervention, and response across the lifespan.
- In addition to the identified cultural consensus models, the CCM process also produces a new measurement tool that can be scrutinized for its psychometric properties in future studies using traditional classical test theory or item response theory approaches.
For this analysis, we categorised study estimates into broad categories based on the continent individuals were reported to originate from. Given the diverse ethnic minority groups, we pre-specified a subgroup analysis which aimed to disaggregate ethnic minority groups into slightly more nuanced subgroups. In order to have a single estimate in each study for the overall pooled estimates, we first aggregated the estimates for the minority groups using a fixed-effects meta-analysis (which assumed a common rate in the minority groups under observation in each study).
