A People Awakening: An Indigenous approach to suicide prevention

For more than 70 years, suicide prevention models have largely been designed to identify and mitigate risk through an individualized approach. But as suicide rates have steadily risen for the past few decades, momentum is growing for a new paradigm – one that focuses instead on teaching communities how to build off their cultural strengths. Indigenous researchers in Alaska have been testing this type of model in two of the nation’s most impacted populations for suicide – Native villages and military installations – with hopes that their approach could scale both nationally and abroad.

Health

Successful Indigenous suicide prevention model piloted in the US military

Brandon Kapelow

On the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, researchers from the University of Alaska Fairbanks have worked with Alaska Native villages to build suicide prevention programs focused on community strengths, rather than just mitigating risks. The approach has shown such promise it’s now being piloted in a totally different group: the U.S. military.
Health

Indigenous prevention programs seek to address persistently high suicide rates

Brandon Kapelow

An innovative program built around Yup’ik culture is helping to lead the way in the national conversations around the issue of suicide prevention. Financial and logistical obstacles have made implementation difficult in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, where suicide rates have remained high.
Health

Suicide prevention program finds strength in Yup’ik cultural roots

Brandon Kapelow

For decades, the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta has been home to the nation’s highest rates of suicide. In the 1980s, the backlash to a Pulitzer Prize-winning series helped prompt decades of work from Indigenous leaders to build innovative prevention programs from within the region focused on community strengths.