A Social-Ecological Perspective of Spiritual Resilience and Suicidality among African-American Men

ABSTRACT

Despite their minoritized status research has shown that suicide among African-American men has steadily increased. Research has also discussed generalized protective factors that have been found to mitigate suicide risk. What lacks is a more culturally nuanced definition of spiritual resilience which has been found to protect against suicide for African-American men. Using Socio-Ecological Resiliency Theory (S-ERT), The Theory of Intersectionality (TOI), and Critical Race Theory (CRT) as our theoretical lens, this article draws on the lived experiences of social workers working with suicidal African-American men. It examines the social ecologies of African-American men and seeks to understand how these experiences can help to mitigate suicide risk. Implications are provided for social work research, policy and education programs to ensure that practitioners are well versed in working with this population.

KEYWORDS:

• Socio-ecological resiliency theory (S-ERT)
• social work
• CRT
• suicidality
• African-American men

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.