Exploring Aboriginal youth suicide | |
Aboriginal suicide is different. Colin Tatz. Macquarie University, Sydney: Centre for Comparative Genocide Studies 1999 (165 pp). |
This 1999 Report was commissioned by the Criminology Research Council and has the lengthy subtitle "Aboriginal youth suicide in New South Wales, the ACT and New Zealand: towards a model of explanation and alleviation." Professor Colin Tatz is the director of the Centre for Comparative Genocide Studies at Macquarie University. His training is in political science, public administration and law and he has also practised as a sociologist. He has written a number of books on Aboriginal issues, including Aborigines in sport, and brings to this topic a long experience of Aboriginal communities, if not specifically Aboriginal health. Professor Tatz notes that he has "approached this report with caution and sensibility", but the majority of this work is a polemical view based on qualitative research rather than any objective quantitative analysis of data. While he does produce some prevalence data, he acknowledges that there may well be a very significant underestimate of both the numbers of suicides and the total Aboriginal population from which his figures are taken. That very fact alone draws into question a number of his conclusions. He takes as his starting point the Aboriginal deaths in custody issue of the 1980s, but ignores one of the main findings of the Royal Commission: that there was no actual difference in suicide rates between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal persons in custody. He then goes on to explore Aboriginal youth suicide outside of the prison setting. He rejects the possibility that mental disorders may be involved, and makes no attempt to control for other confounding variables. Unfortunately, Professor Tatz appears to be unaware of data demonstrating a high degree of prevalence of mental disorders in those who have suicided in a number of different countries, including in indigenous groups in Taiwan and also, more recently, in a diverse population in India. Nor does he mention recent rigorous Australian research which showed, perhaps counterintuitively, that "suicide attempts among female sole parents in state-housing is one of the few health indices for which Aboriginal statistics are less than for non-Aboriginals". The majority of this work is a poignant and at times powerful reminder of the suffering that continues in the Aboriginal community. However, it does not further our evidence-based understanding of suicide, be it Aboriginal or non-Aboriginal. Robert Goldney
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