Native American communities experience a much higher rate of mental health issues, such as substance abuse and suicide, than any other racial or ethnic group in the country ― and the media tend to fixate on these grim figures.
Data shows that tribal communities experience psychological distress 1.5 times more often than the general population, and Native Americans use and abuse alcohol and drugs at younger ages and at higher rates than any other ethnic group. Plus, suicide is the second-leading cause of death among 10- to 34-year-olds in tribal communities.
But Doreen Bird, Ph.D., an expert on mental health issues in tribal communities, says numbers like these tell only part of the story.
Bird, who hails from the Kewa Pueblo of New Mexico, has devoted her career to researching mental and behavioral health among Native American communities. She notes that suicide rates can vary widely from tribe to tribe, and cautions against treating all Native peoples as a monolith.
“You can get a very different picture among different tribal nations,” Bird told HuffPost.
Because of the stigma surrounding suicide, the reported numbers can also sometimes be off. In tribal communities, there’s a reluctance to speak about those who have died by suicide, as well as mistrust of outside researchers who examine issues related to suicide but aren’t from within the tribal communities, she added. It can also be taboo to talk about those who have died, Bird explained.
Bird, a 48-year-old mom of six and grandmother of three, wants to change the way tribal communities’ stories are told and hopes to change the conversation around some of the toughest challenges facing many Native populations around the country.
She says alcohol abuse in her own family motivated her to explore these issues from a public health perspective, which means balancing her tribal background with her academic training. From 2016 to 2018, Bird served as a Senior Tribal Prevention Specialist at the Suicide Prevention Resource Center, where she worked with 16 tribes across the United States to address suicide prevention. Recently, she obtained her doctorate in justice studies at the Arizona State University School of Social Transformation.
Read more at HuffPost.com