In Oklahoma, an average of two to three people die by suicide every day.
This rate is more than 1.5 times the national average and has increased by almost 150 percent since 2000. Overall, as reported by the Oklahoma Voice last year, the state's soaring suicide rates place them in the top ten nationally.
For Native Americans in Oklahoma, these rates had long been even more concerning. As recently as 2021, Indigenous Americans suicide rates were more than twice the national average.
But the suicide and self-inflicted death rates among Native Americans have since been on a sharp decline thanks to concentrated efforts by tribal members and governments.
Tribal nations around the country and in our state are providing holistic approaches that college campuses might utilize to help address this growing mental health crisis for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous students.
A study by the Healthy Minds Project found that 14 percent of college students have experienced suicidal ideations in the past year. Addressing suicide with these students is critical because of the many risk factors that university students face. For instance, a recent study of more than 10,000 students found that the most frequent risk factors for suicide are depression, anxiety, stress, academic commitments, lack of opportunities, low income and race.
As someone who has been working in education for more than a quarter of a century, I am interested in how our colleges and universities might help to address Oklahoma's high suicide rates.
Higher education in Oklahoma is in a unique position to help identify and respond to our students who are struggling with mental health.
Tribes, both in our state and nationally, might provide helpful interventions to address the many risk factors.
Some tribes, such as the White Mountain Apache Tribe in Arizona, work with local leaders to develop suicide prevention programs that help youth and young adults to grow holistically in their local culture and history, spirituality, self-esteem, health and fitness, discipline, and communication. In addition to these prevention programs, this tribe also uses community-based interventions such as public suicide awareness campaigns, biannual prevention walks, prevention conferences, and data monitoring and response systems.
Overall, these interventions have been shown to reduce suicide rates in their community. As documented over a decade, the suicide death rate among 15- to 24-year-olds dropped by 30 percent while the national death rate during this same time period remained relatively stable.
More locally, many tribes in Oklahoma offer suicide-focused behavioral health support. In addition, research has been conducted for more than a decade using positive psychology to help reduce suicidal ideations among Oklahoma Native American college students.
Another promising approach that tribes are using, which our campuses can readily integrate, are digital mental health interventions. These interventions include telehealth sessions with a licensed therapist, self-paced suicide prevention modules, and messages that are automatically sent to students' phones.
They hold promise because there are high levels of internet use among students experiencing suicidal ideations. Those students are more likely to seek support via these modalities.
These digital mental health interventions have been shown to significantly reduce suicidal ideations, with there being a 40 percent improvement for participants using these interventions. These digital interventions are also more accessible for today's college students.
Other possibilities include supporting ongoing funding for the mental health crisis hotline 988 as well as for national mental health organizations such as the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), which almost lost funding earlier this year.
Collectively, Oklahoma's higher education system can work to stem the rising tide of suicide in our state. By following the lead of our tribal nations, our colleges and universities are in a unique position to help address this growing crisis.
Eric Kyle works for the Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning at the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond.
Reprinted from Oklahoma Voice, https://oklahomavoice.com, under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
