- Email: [email protected]
The inexorable death of first peoples: an open letter to the WHO
Correspondence
Indigenous communities experience some of the highest rates of suicide globally, especially among young people. This worrying epidemic has already been shown in Inuit communities of North America and Greenland 1,2 and the Amazonian groups of Guyana, but recently has been shown to extend to Australian First Nations people (mainly Aboriginal individuals).3 The international scientific community has already been alerted to the obsolescence of WHO’s definition of health, 4 and the need to adapt patterns of suicide prevention procedures used in high-income
areas to indigenous communities. 5 But beyond advocating for interd isciplinary care—mainly anthropological and medical, notably in its psychiatric aspect— could the WHO (urgently) formally acknowledge suicide in indigenous groups as a key issue to stop this seemingly universal phenomenon? The problem of increasing suicide rates in indigenous communities is diffuse and affects the entire planet. Diverse ethnic groups are unable to cope with the loss of their benchmarks caused by rapid modernisation. In the absence of any flexible and speedy reaction, the risk is simple: the inexorable death of the first peoples, and the health community’s total culpability. We declare no competing interests.
www.thelancet.com/planetary-health Vol 1 June 2017
*Philippe Charlier, Saudamini Deo Department of Consultation and Public Health, Max Fourestier Hospital & IPES, 92000 Nanterre, France (PC); and Section of Medical and Forensic Anthropology (UVSQ & EA4569 Paris-Descartes), 78180 Montigny-Le-Bretonneux, France (PC, SD)
Bill Bachmann/Science Photo Library
The inexorable death of first peoples: an open letter to the WHO
Copyright © The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. 1 2 3 4
5
Crawford A. Inuit take action toward suicide prevention. Lancet 2016; 388: 1036–38. Webster PC. Canada’s indigenous suicide crisis. Lancet 2016; 387: 2494. Cousins S. Suicide in Indigenous Australians: a “catastrophic crisis”. Lancet 2017; 389: 242. Charlier P, Coppens Y, Malaurie J, et al. A new definition of health? An open letter of autochthonous peoples and medical anthropologists to the WHO. Eur J Intern Med 2017; 37: 33–37. Charlier P, Malaurie J, Wasserman D, et al. The EPA guidance on suicide treatment and prevention needs to be adjusted to fight the epidemics of suicide at the North Pole area and other autochthonous communities. Eur Psychiatry 2017; 41: 129–31.
e96
Indigenous communities experience some of the highest rates of suicide globally, especially among young people. This worrying epidemic has already been shown in Inuit communities of North America and Greenland 1,2 and the Amazonian groups of Guyana, but recently has been shown to extend to Australian First Nations people (mainly Aboriginal individuals).3 The international scientific community has already been alerted to the obsolescence of WHO’s definition of health, 4 and the need to adapt patterns of suicide prevention procedures used in high-income
areas to indigenous communities. 5 But beyond advocating for interd isciplinary care—mainly anthropological and medical, notably in its psychiatric aspect— could the WHO (urgently) formally acknowledge suicide in indigenous groups as a key issue to stop this seemingly universal phenomenon? The problem of increasing suicide rates in indigenous communities is diffuse and affects the entire planet. Diverse ethnic groups are unable to cope with the loss of their benchmarks caused by rapid modernisation. In the absence of any flexible and speedy reaction, the risk is simple: the inexorable death of the first peoples, and the health community’s total culpability. We declare no competing interests.
www.thelancet.com/planetary-health Vol 1 June 2017
*Philippe Charlier, Saudamini Deo Department of Consultation and Public Health, Max Fourestier Hospital & IPES, 92000 Nanterre, France (PC); and Section of Medical and Forensic Anthropology (UVSQ & EA4569 Paris-Descartes), 78180 Montigny-Le-Bretonneux, France (PC, SD)
Bill Bachmann/Science Photo Library
The inexorable death of first peoples: an open letter to the WHO
Copyright © The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. 1 2 3 4
5
Crawford A. Inuit take action toward suicide prevention. Lancet 2016; 388: 1036–38. Webster PC. Canada’s indigenous suicide crisis. Lancet 2016; 387: 2494. Cousins S. Suicide in Indigenous Australians: a “catastrophic crisis”. Lancet 2017; 389: 242. Charlier P, Coppens Y, Malaurie J, et al. A new definition of health? An open letter of autochthonous peoples and medical anthropologists to the WHO. Eur J Intern Med 2017; 37: 33–37. Charlier P, Malaurie J, Wasserman D, et al. The EPA guidance on suicide treatment and prevention needs to be adjusted to fight the epidemics of suicide at the North Pole area and other autochthonous communities. Eur Psychiatry 2017; 41: 129–31.
e96