American Indian Culture and Research Journal

Suicide among American Indian youth is a matter of serious concern to members of all Indian tribal organizations across the nation and is an important issue confronting the human services professions today. Suicide is the second leading cause of death among American Indian youths fifteen to nineteen years of age, with a rate 2.7 times (37.1 per 100,000) that of youth of all races in the United States, and the fourth leading cause of death among American Indian youth ages five through fourteen, with a rate 2.8 times (2.5 per 100,000)higher than that of all races in the United States. Within the Indian youth suicide group, American Indian children placed in non-Indian homes for adoptive or foster care suffer a rate of seventy suicides per 100,000, six times higher than that of other youth in the United States. While suicide rates for youths fourteen through nineteen years old have decreased somewhat, rates for ten and fourteen year olds are approximately four times higher than that for the general U.S. population and have continued to increase steadily. In 1987 Irving N. Berlin reported, “there are considerable data to indicate that the more than 50,000 American Indian children adoptees in Anglo homes are at considerable risk.” A host of issues are germane to suicide trends. These include data vital to the planning of intervention programs for age groups most at risk, pattern variations among tribes, and common associate factors that include alcoholism, arrest careers, and interpersonal distress such as anomie, helplessness, hopelessness, and despair. American Indian suicide first came to public attention in 1968 when Senator Robert F. Kennedy visited an intermountain Indian reservation. On the day of his visit, the community had suffered the loss of an Indian youth by suicide, and thus Indian suicide was a major topic of conversation.