Health Officials Fear COVID-19 Pandemic-Related Suicide Spike Among Indigenous Youth

Fallen pinecones covered 16-year-old Leslie Keiser’s fresh grave at the edge of Wolf Point, a small community on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation on the eastern Montana plains. Leslie, whose father is a member of the Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes, is one of at least two teenagers on the reservation who died by suicide this summer. A third teen’s death is under investigation, authorities say. Leslie’s mother, Natalie Keiser, was standing beside the grave recently when she received a text with a photo of the headstone she ordered. She looked at her phone and then back at the grave of the girl who took her own life in September. “I wish she would have reached out and let us know what was wrong,” she said. Youth suicide rates have been increasing in the U.S. over the past decade. Between 2007 and 2017, the rate nearly tripled for children aged 10 to 14, and rose 76% among 15- to 19-year-olds, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Mental health experts fear the pandemic could make things worse, particularly for kids who live on rural native American reservations like Fort Peck. In a typical year, Native American youth die by suicide at nearly twice the rate of their white peers in the U.S. Among those are vulnerable children on remote reservations who are cut off from their larger families and communities by COVID-19-caused restrictions. “It has put a really heavy spirit on them, being isolated and depressed...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 Source Type: news