Jada F
- Research Program Mentor
PhD Doctor of Philosophy candidate
Expertise
Clinical psychology, Sexuality, Racial and Gender Discrimination, Mental Health, Social Justice Issues, Maternal Psychology,
Project ideas
Suicide in the African American community
Historically, suicidality among African Americans has represented one of the lowest suicide rates of any ethnic group in the United States, ranking as the 16th leading cause of death among African Americans (Walker, 2007). In the past decade, however, suicidal behavior has increased significantly such that suicide deaths among Black youths have nearly doubled from a rate of 2.55 per 100,000 in 2007 to 4.82 per 100,000 in 2017 (The Congressional Black Caucus, 2019). The proposed project draws attention to suicide deaths among African Americans, focusing on racially insensitive, anti-Black suicide assessments, misdiagnosis, and misclassification of suicide deaths. This phenomenon warrants attention to enhance our knowledge of suicidality within the African American community, with the intent to improve prevention interventions to be unique to Black suicidal individuals.