While suicide rates have decreased for white populations over the past two decades, they have increased in the Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) community. Yet, there are very few studies that examine trends of suicidal death across sexes in AAPI young adults aged 18–25.
A new study from researchers at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine has found that over the 21-year period (1999–2020), there has been a notable increase in the prevalence of suicidal death among AAPI young adults across both sexes, with a sharp increase among AAPI male young adults starting in 2008.
The findings appear online in the Asian Journal of Psychiatry.
“Our study highlights a growing mental health crisis within this community that often goes unnoticed. More importantly, there is a severe, dire lack of public health attention and federal funding on this issue,” explains corresponding author Seungbin Oh, Ph.D., LPC, NCC, assistant professor of psychiatry at the school.
Using data from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) Multiple Cause-of-Death files spanning from 1999–2020, the researchers analyzed trends of suicidal death among Asian American young adults aged 18-25.
They found that during the 21-year study period, a total number of 4,082 AAPI young adults died by suicide, with the annual average suicidal rate being 3.47 per 100,000 individuals. Of those deaths, the majority (74.9%) were males while 25.1% were females.
From 1999–2020, the rate of suicide increased for both AAPI males and females. Specifically,…
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