African-American Males Between the Ages of 15

African-American males between the ages of 15 and 24 are at relatively higher risk of suicide according to Center for Disease control and prevention. Since 1980s the suicide rate has increased tremendously and many young seemingly successful males are committing suicide following years of suffering from chronic depression. Such cases highlight the importance of recognizing signs of depression young males but since researches and studies do not always reach parents on time, they fail to stay on top of it. This is how Gina Smallwood felt when in 2008 her young son shot himself right before his 20th birthday. (Thomas, 2009) Gina had no idea Kelvin was at the risk of suicide or that there were any statistics that placed African-American youth at greater risk of suicide. Instead she felt that since her son had been an honor student and had a bright future ahead of it; suicide would be the last thing on his mind. It however came as a complete shock when after an argument with his girlfriend; Kelvin went ahead and killed himself. But argument was not the reason, it was just a trigger. Studies suggest that young African-American males are at greater risk because of various challenges situations they have to deal with including racism. Apart from that it is also found that people who kill themselves are normally the ones who have suffered from depression for years. (Thomas, 2009)

Barnes (2006) discusses the issue of suicide among young African-American males with particular emphasis on the way family members dealt with the loss of a child due to suicide. Mothers in such cases explained that they did not receive much help from the broader community because of the stigma attached to suicide. Church was also unable to extend much help and whatever it tried to do was not useful for the grieving family. The mothers in such families felt that they had no one to turn out and hence they had to go through the grieving process alone. In this case, data was collected through a survey of a carefully selected sample of 60 African-Americans from mid-Atlantic United States. Stratified sampling was carefully done to ensure equal representation among gender and generation lines. The study holds significance for development of mental health programs and research in this field.

Compton et al. (2005) conducted a thorough research on the subject of suicide among low income young black males. They found that lower social adaptability and lack of sound family cohesion were two very important factors influencing rate of suicide among young black males. They also concluded that depression played a significant role and previous attempts must not be ignored because they were good indicators of a possible meltdown later in life. Data for the research was collected from a case-control study of 200 African-American men and women between the ages of 18 and 64 who had visited a large public hospital for health related services. The study opens door for further research on the subject of social environment risk and how it affects the rate of suicide.

Walker et al. (2009) conducted a study on the subject of theories guiding attitude towards life and death among young black men and women and compared it with attitude of Europeans. They found that European-Americans were very less likely to bring God into the equation and might place the entire burden on the government and their interpersonal relations. The quality of interpersonal relations seriously affected the risk of suicide among young males and females. It was also discovered that black men and women were more likely to say that a person died because that is what God has in his mind for them. They feel that if a person commits suicide, he does that because God has planned this for him. This is a major difference between the attitude of young black men and women and Europeans Americans. Data in this case was collected through administration of Stigma Questionnaire, and Suicide Ideation Questionnaire to 251 undergraduate college students. The study holds significance for the development of culturally appropriate interventions in the case of patients at higher risk of suicide.

Poussaint and Alexander (2000) discussed the issue of suicide among young black males more deeply in their book: Lay down my Burden. The book was a personal account of her brother's suicide so her research is far more personal with good statistics and accurate facts. The purpose of her research was more personal for that reason. She can be slightly biased since it was something that was close to her heart but overall the book was written with good factual information. They found that compared to black women, the rate of suicide in young black men was increasing at an alarming rate. They discovered that there was no difference in presence of the cases of suicide across all social and income levels. They found that young black men were far more likely to be at higher risk of suicide than black women. Even the rate of suicide has gone up so dramatically that the gap between young white male suicides and black males was getting narrower.