A narrative review examining intersections of identity in older adult suicidality

Abstract

The burgeoning older adult population requires a shift in focus in health prevention efforts to encompass those in later life. Within the broader older adult community, diverse older adults comprise an increasingly larger segment of the older adult population. One area of ongoing concern for the health and well-being of older adults is suicide. Risk and protective factors for older adults have been well documented. However, thorough examination of risk or protective factors for suicide within elders who experience ethic, linguistic, or cultural gerodiversity and elders whose intersections of identity includes multiple stigmatized identities, remains underexplored. Consequently, the aims of this narrative review are to: (1) provide prevalence rates for death by suicide in US older adults across different identity statuses, (2) describe identity status differences in risk and protective factors for late life suicide, and (3) provide examples of culturally responsive suicide prevention and intervention. Literature reviewed suggests that the current understanding of late life suicide is most representative of suicide-related outcomes in White, non-Hispanic elders. To represent the growing heterogeneity of the older adult population in the United States, there is a need to incorporate the unique risk and protective factors of diverse intersecting identities and to expand our conceptualization of suicide in late life to encompass the role of oppressive environments and systemic inequalities.