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Black Male Suicide Rates Increase
Author: MARYCLAIRE DALE
Originally Published In The Associated Press, March 2002 DOWNLOAD PDF
PHILADELPHIA (AP) - The rate of gun-related suicides among black male teen-agers nearly quadrupled between 1979 and 1994 before falling off somewhat in the late 1990s, according to a new study. Traditionally, blacks have had much lower suicide rates than whites, but the availability of firearms and other factors may account for the closing of the gap. "One of the factors is the easy availability of firearms ... especially when suicide is - quote - impulsive behavior," said former Surgeon General David Satcher, who made suicide prevention a top public health issue before leaving office in February. "If the means are not immediately available, many of those suicides would be prevented. In many of those cases, people would even get treatment," said Satcher, now a visiting fellow with the Kaiser Family Foundation who was not involved with the study. The study, which relies on data collected by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, shows that gun-related suicides by 15- to 19-year-old black males rose from 3.6 per 100,000 in 1979 to 13.9 per 100,000 in 1994. The rate for 1997, the most recent year studied, had dropped to 8.4 per 100,000. Firearms were used in 54 percent of all black suicides in that age group in 1979 and in 74 percent by 1997. For whites in the same age group, the gun-related suicide rate was 9.7 per 100,000 in 1979, peaked at 13.6 per 100,000 in 1991 and dropped to 10.4 per 100,000 in 1997. Guns were used in 68 percent of all 1979 suicides in the age group and in 65 percent in 1997. The study appears this month in Psychiatric Services, published by the American Psychiatric Association. The data shows similar but less dramatic rates of increase among 20- to 24-year-old black males. "The age group 15 to 19 disproportionately accounts for the increase in suicides among this (black male) group," said co-author Sean Joe, an assistant professor of social work at the University of Pennsylvania. "That was the one (statistic) that was most alarming to me." Joe's study did not look at causes for the suicide rates. He speculates, however, that young blacks sense more pressure to be self-reliant and successful, and internalize that pressure more than older generations who could point to segregation or other obstacles to success. "There's a greater expectation within the African-American community that younger African-Americans should be able to do more with the opportunities in front of them," Joe said. "They're going to interpret every barrier - which might be real - as their own fault," he said. Joe's interest in gun violence began after losing his brother, Trevor, to gun violence in New York in 1987. The 17-year-old was killed near their Brooklyn neighborhood by someone trying to steal his drugs, Joe said. While the death was not a suicide, Joe began to study ways in which some young blacks put themselves in harm's way, work that led to his study of black suicides. Donna Holland Barnes lost her 20-year-old son, Marc, to suicide when he drove his vehicle into a river in 1990. He was a student at The University of Massachusetts-Lowell at the time. Devastated, Barnes sought out support groups to help her cope. She didn't see any other black faces. "I began feeling very isolated in my culture, like I was the only black person who lost a son," said Barnes, who four years ago founded The National Organization of People of Color Against Suicide. The group holds public meetings once a year in various cities to spread awareness of suicide warning signs and to offer support for survivors. "The problem with firearms is the impulsivity, and that a lot of these deaths by these young kids is a young act. Not a lot of thought goes into it," said Barnes, 53, a sociology professor at Southwest Texas State University. "All they know is that they want their pain to go away."
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