Dr. Joe was recently mentioned in the article “Will the Pandemic Result in More Suicides? ” for his research on suicide among Black people in the United States. Below are some excerpts from the article.
“As Sean Joe, who is the director of the Race and Opportunity Lab at Washington University in St. Louis and who studies suicide among Black people in the United States, puts it, “You can’t assume the overall trend describes what’s happening with all Americans.”
“And while the age group most at risk has remained roughly the same for white people in recent decades, Sean Joe says, it has been getting “younger and younger” for Black people. In 2018, a study in JAMA Pediatrics found that suicide rates increased for Black children between 5 and 11 in the periods from 1993 to 1997 and from 2008 to 2012. The rate decreased for their white counterparts. “One of the myths that’s challenging is that children do not die by suicide,” Joe says. “And they do.”
“Joe thinks we may not see the impact of the pandemic on suicide until vaccines have lessened the immediate dangers of the virus and Americans survey what they’ve lost: traditions, celebrations, jobs, loved ones. “All that complicated grief that’s been occurring, that’s what will hit America in the next year to 24 months,” he says. “And that’s what we have to watch out for. That we don’t have a behavioral health crisis following this Covid crisis and nobody’s preparing for it.”
Read the full article at https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/21/magazine/will-the-pandemic-result-in-more-suicides.html”