Approaches to suicide prevention in American Indian and Alaskan Native communities

Suicide is the second leading cause of death for American Indians and Alaska Natives ages 10 to 24(1). The Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act (GLSMA), passed in 2004 to support state and tribal community-based suicide prevention programs, is typically the most significant resource committed to these initiatives in these communities. The national evaluation of the GLSMA is the largest effort to examine questions about how youth suicide prevention in tribal communities can be effectively understood, improved, and sustained. This presentation includes data from two GLS evaluation components: the Prevention Strategies Inventory (PSI), which catalogs all implemented prevention strategies and estimated percentage of grant funds spent on each strategy type, and the Training Exit Survey (TES), which describes demographic characteristics of trainees and the setting and role in which trainees typically interact with youth. Collected since 2005, the data includes over 1,400 PSI entries and 4,900 TES forms from 730 trainings. The 22 grantees have adopted or developed traditional healing practices (77.3%), coalition building (77.3%), and activities to increase cultural identity, resilience, and community connectedness (86.4%) (e.g. traditional crafts, ropes courses, talking circles). This data result in initial attempts at illustrating the depth and breadth of U.S. tribal suicide prevention activities and has the potential to both contribute to their effectiveness as well as address gaps in suicide prevention knowledge and understanding.

(1) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. Web based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS). Retrieved Jan. 25, 2012, from: http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/wisqars.