La. taskforce aims to prevent rising suicide rates among African Americans
BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - Louisiana leaders have formed a task force to explore what they believe is a rise in suicide deaths among African Americans.
Research led by Southern University and the Louisiana Department of Health in hopes of finding ways to prevent mental health and suicide in the state.
Members of the taskforce all agree that six months is not enough time to gather enough information, partially because they found there is not any state law mandating people to report when there is suicide, especially at colleges and universities.
“We need that legislation that mandates reporting. Especially at our colleges and universities. The state-mandated crime report just does not capture that sensitive data, it does not share that information so that we can be able to provide the services that are needed,” said Dr. Charmaine Williams, Executive Director of Public Policy Program.
According to Dr. Williams, the goal of this research is to produce methods to prevent suicide and the stigma surrounding mental health issues, but finding the data was not easy.
“There is no mandated reporting that is going on across the state. There are not entities where they have to capture that so that we can have the data so we can know how to help the community to help the individuals that need to services,” said Williams.
They believe that more documentation could help steer them in the right direction when finding prevention methods.
Members of the task force hope the research is supported by the legislature, so they can further expand the study.
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