Inuit in the Arctic and Suicide Rates

From the News section of the Toronto Star, Monday, January 7, page A4, an article about Inuit people in the Arctic and suicide rates:

SHIFT AWAY FROM LAND LINKED TO SUICIDE RATE

Study of Inuit finds first generation born in towns started trends

Bob Weber
The Canadian Press

New research comparing suicide trends in different Arctic regions offers fresh insight into the roots of a social dysfunction that snuffs out the lives of dozens of young Inuit every year - and suggests there is hope for a turnaround.

In a newly published article in the journal Aboriginal Issues, reseacher Jack Hicks correlated suicide rates among Inuit in Alaska, Nunavut and Greenland with the period when governments encouraged them to move off the land and into communities.

In all three countries, suicide rates began to rise among the first generation born in towns - the sons and daughters of those who had grown up on the land.

The trend began in north Alaska in the 1960, in Greenland in the 1970s and in Nunavut in the 1980s.

"It's a quite distinct time period in all these places, and it's the same order in which 'active colonialism' occurred - the period when the national governments really began to impact on the lifeways of their Inuit population," said Hicks, an Iqualuit-based PhD candidate at the University of Greenland.

Historically, Inuit suicide rates were quite low. Hicks said records suggest there was only one suicide in what is now Nunavut in the entire 1960s. As well, suicide tended to be concentrated among the old and sick.

But the 1960s marked the last gasp of traditional culture, before all Inuit were moved into commuities.

Now Nunavut's suicide rate is 11 times the national average, and suicide claims the lives of about two dozen Inuit every year, mostly young men.

In Greenland, suicide began to increase among young men born after 1950, the same year the Danish government began its program of modernizing the territory.

"It's the children of the modernization period," said Hicks.

Neither Canada nor Alaska has comparable records for Inuit from that era. But because tuberculosis treatment was one of the first government services to be offered in those areas, Hicks was able to use the decline in deaths from TB as an index of government intervention.

Hicks maintains that moderization and suicide must be linked.