Suicide rising among women in Nunavut

JOHN THOMPSON

Nunavut’s suicide count for 2006 has already reached last year’s total – so far, 25 young Inuit have taken their lives.

“It’s not looking good,” said Tim Neily, Nunavut’s chief coroner, this Monday.

“Spring and fall seasons are often higher risk times of year,” he said. “We can probably expect more. How many more, who knows.”

The most recently reported suicide occurred in Cape Dorset on Sept. 5, when an 18-year-old woman killed herself.

Iqaluit leads Nunavut’s other communities this year with six suicides, followed by Kugluktuk, Pond Inlet and Pangnirtung, which each saw two completed suicides this year.

The rest of Nunavut’s communities have had one suicide take place so far, with the exceptions of Hall Beach, Coral Harbour, Arviat, Chesterfield Inlet, Sanikiluaq and Kimmirut, which have seen none.

The worst year for suicide since Nunavut’s inception was 2003, when the body count reached 37. Since then it dropped to 27 in 2004, and 24 in 2005 – leading suicide prevention activists and the coroner to hope they were watching the beginning of a downward trend.

Because Nunavut’s population is so small, it’s hard to tell when a spike in one population is a worrying trend, and when it’s just a blip, said Neily.

However, he suggests suicides by females could be on the rise, and that the average age could be increasing as well.

One-quarter of this year’s suicides were by women. Most years women are proportionally closer to about one-tenth.

And in Nunavut, most suicides occur between the ages of 14-24.

“This year, so far the average age is 25,” Neily said.

Trends in communities are similarly difficult to spot, because of the small population sizes.

“It goes in stutters, stop and go,” Neily said. “It’s really hard to get a good grasp on it.”

“But they’re bad across the board,” he added.

This year Inuit organizations and the Government of Nunavut rebranded Suicide Awareness Day as Embrace Life Day, to emphasize the positive, rather than the tragedies of lives lost – which they say better reflects Inuit traditional values.

Marches were planned in all of Nunavut’s communities this week. In Iqaluit, rain interfered with these plans, and some 40 residents, including teachers, police and health professionals, gathered inside Nakasuk school’s gym instead.

At the event, Nunavut’s commissioner, Ann Hanson, said that residents need to know when to speak to health professionals about depression – but that the support of family and friends is the biggest help anyone can have.

“We can listen. We can ask for help. Together, we can prevent tragedy. We all do our share,” she said.

For onlookers such as Neily, a study currently underway also brings hope in solving the puzzle of why so many young Inuit take their own lives.

The Qaujivallianiq Inuusirijauvalauqtunik, or “learning from lives that have been lived,” study began last fall, led by Gustavo Turecki, a psychiatrist who runs the McGill Group for Suicide Studies.

The study involves conducting exhaustive interviews with the parents, friends and others who knew someone who committed suicide. The study’s goal is to capture the full stories of 100 suicide victims.

For every suicide investigated, the study will also seek someone who attempted suicide from the same age group, sex and community. And it will also seek to find someone who never attempted suicide who fits those same categories.

Researchers hope these interviews will help them piece together a complete psychological profile of people who die by suicide. They also hope to better understand the differences between those who complete a suicide, and those who do not.

It’s hoped that the results of this survey, in two or three years, will increase understanding of suicide by Inuit.

“I’m really hopeful they’ll come up with a full picture,” Neily said.