What Adolescent Group Has The Highest Suicide Rate?
The first group associated with this topic is usually young white people.
It is not surprising that people ignore minorities, even though they are not small. Within every minority group, adolescents are the most vulnerable and most likely to commit suicide. Due to the different and complex factors that lead to suicide among minority adolescents, this phenomenon will develop into a series of social risks over time. The society should pay more attention to the living conditions and mental health of minority adolescents in order to reduce their suicide rate.
As recent decades have passed, teen suicide rates have risen among different groups of minority teens.
According to the article “The relationship between violence and youth suicide indicators among Asian American and Pacific Islander youth,” Else, Goebert, Bell, Carlton and Fukuda (2009) found that teen suicide rates tripled between 1950 and 1990, but gradually increased after 2003. Although the suicide rate among the minority group, Hawaiian teens also declined during the same period, it remains the highest among other minority teens in the United States (pg. 471; Else, et al. 2009). Because of America’s ethnic diversity, this focus on aggregate statistics is no longer accurate. Minority Hawaiian teens have higher suicide rates compared to white teens, which means that there must be minority teens in today’s society who have experienced the pain of suicide.
Moreover, the article “Risk and Resiliency Factors Influencing Suicidality Among Urban African American and Latino Youth,” O’Donnell, Wardlaw and Stueve (2004) indicate that:
The suicide rate for White adolescents decreased by 15%, but for African American adolescents increased by 14% during 1991 and 1999.
In the same year, a report stated that 12.8% of Latino youth attempted suicide which becomes the highest place; meanwhile, White adolescents had 7.3%, and African American adolescents had 6.7% (O’Donnell, et al. 2004). From these statistics, a huge gap of suicide rates between White and some individual
minority adolescents existed in recent years. In addition, finding the truth behind the huge difference of teenager suicide rates among White and minority adolescents is essential. Regarding the difference of living environment between different ethnic adolescents. Most minority groups such as Latino and African American students have poor family conditions. In the sample O’Donnell et al. (2004) designed in their study, the students were from some junior high and high schools in some low-income areas, and they are mostly Latino and African American.
The authors estimated that there were about 80% of students who were eligible for free lunch programs and had similar household income (O’Donnell, et al. 2004). Apparently, many Latino and African American adolescents are living in a destitute environment and facing difficulties from suicide risk and low-standard living quality.
Moreover, an aspect of mental health must be also considered under a question of high suicide rate among each minority group.
Putting aside all physical and material factors, minority adolescents who attempted suicide mainly were diagnosed depression.
According to the article “Latina Adolescent Suicide Ideations and Attempts: Associations with Connectedness to Parents, Peers, and Teachers,” not only Latina adolescents, other adolescents attempting suicide is by the reason of mental health problems, especially depression as the most common reason in causing adolescents to commit suicide (pg. 672; DeLuca, Wyman & Warren 2012). In connecting to the phenomenon of high suicide rate of minority adolescents. There is an apparent distinction exists between them and White adolescents, that is, totally different background and cultures.
Minority families may speak another language besides English. And many of them are first- or second-generation immigrants in the U.S. For example, there are 38% of Latinas who were first-generation immigrants and about 20% of Latinas of who were second-generation immigrants (pg. 679; DeLuca, et al. 2012). Moreover, Lau, Jernewall, Zane and Myers (2002) mentioned in their article “Correlates of Suicidal Behaviors Among Asian American Outpatient Youths,” Asian American adolescents are mainly from immigrant families.
This immigrant identity causes inconvenience and negative influences to minority adolescents’ lives. Such as mental illness.
Acculturative stress, a potential factor of suicide, only exists on the adolescents who have immigrant background and issues of parenting conflict. In different minority groups, the factors of causing such stress are different. For example, Native Hawaiian and Filipino adolescents have to struggle with their immigrant life, including lifestyle, language, low income and absence of parents supporting (pg. 474; Else, et al. 2009).
For Latina immigrant families, first-generation adolescents are seeking more outside relationships and resources, which implies that they are more culturally adapted and less constrained by the stubborn traditional relationship with parents (pg. 679; DeLuca, et al. 2012). The contrast of Native Hawaiian and Filipino and Latina adolescents is obvious. Among them, the change of acculturative stress level is more connective to the suicide trend. Another article has provided a study conclusion on confirming the truthfulness of it.
Lau et al. (2002) stated that less acculturated Asian American youths had less parent-child conflict but higher possibility of suicidal behaviors than those who were more acculturated.
For those minority adolescents who are more acculturated, they are able to release a large amount of stress from their social identity and parent-child conflict through their outside networking relationships and resources. On the contrary, adolescents who are less acculturated have to suffer all those stress and pain while they are keeping their traditional cultural thinking and behavior.
Such acculturative stress and depression may be identified as internalizing behavior problems. The more serious level is called externalizing disorders, which display as antisocial behaviors and substance abuse (pg. 201; Lau, et al., 2002). Although externalizing behavior is dread, it protects the mental health of adolescents and prevents further deterioration of illness and suicide by its conspicuous abnormal behaviors.
Minority adolescents still have the risk of suicide caused by low quality of living environment and mental illness. Due to the diversity of cultures and backgrounds, the issues among many minority adolescents have not been seen as necessary nor crucial in the past.
Suicide rates among different ethnic adolescents demonstrate a huge gap between last mid-century and recent years.
As the surrounding environment changes, adolescents suffer differently. For example, if those Latino and African American students live in an advantaged city with wealthy families, they do not have to suffer hunger and rely on free food. Once they meet life needs, it lowers the possibilities of growing up with crime and bullying others. For those immigrant adolescents who are acculturated, family closeness and characteristics are important in their challenging life. Even though there are numerous potential factors of minority adolescents’ suicide in the U.S, the goal of current society is to try to help them with mental health and provide them life supporting.
