Goodwill Janelle R, Taylor Harry O
Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA.
Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
Public Health Rep. 2025 Apr 28:333549251314665. doi: 10.1177/00333549251314665.
Suicides among Black adults in the United States increased nationally during the COVID-19 pandemic, although limited empirical evidence documents the pathways that explain how suicide risk may develop in this population. We examined experiences of non-organizational religious involvement, gratitude, and loneliness and their relation to suicidal ideation among Black adults in the United States.
We analyzed data from a probability-based sample of 995 Black adults in the United States who completed online surveys from April through June 2022. We recruited participants from the AmeriSpeak panel at the National Opinion Research Center. We applied structural equation modeling techniques to measure direct and indirect associations among religiosity, positive psychology, and mental health variables. We tested whether non-organizational religiosity was indirectly associated with suicidal ideation via feelings of gratitude and COVID-19-specific forms of loneliness during the pandemic.
The measurement model demonstrated a good fit to the data. Structural model results indicated that non-organizational religious involvement was positively related to gratitude (β = 0.51; < .001); in turn, feelings of gratitude were associated with reduced suicidal ideation (β = -0.12; = .02). Moreover, COVID-19-specific forms of loneliness were positively associated with past-year suicidal ideation (β = 0.11; = .01). Non-organizational religious involvement, however, was not directly associated with feelings of COVID-19-related loneliness or suicidal ideation.
Public health officials should account for feelings of gratitude and loneliness as mechanisms that can be leveraged to inform the development of evidence-based suicide prevention interventions for Black adults during public health emergencies such as the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.
在新冠疫情期间，美国黑人成年人的自杀率在全国范围内有所上升，尽管实证证据有限，但已有文献记录了该人群中自杀风险可能产生的途径。我们研究了非组织性宗教参与、感恩和孤独感的经历，以及它们与美国黑人成年人自杀意念之间的关系。
我们分析了来自美国995名黑人成年人的概率样本数据，这些人在2022年4月至6月期间完成了在线调查。我们从美国国家民意研究中心的美国民意调查小组中招募了参与者。我们应用结构方程建模技术来测量宗教信仰、积极心理学和心理健康变量之间的直接和间接关联。我们测试了在疫情期间，非组织性宗教信仰是否通过感恩之情和特定于新冠疫情的孤独感与自杀意念间接相关。
测量模型与数据拟合良好。结构模型结果表明，非组织性宗教参与与感恩呈正相关（β = 0.51；p <.001）；反过来，感恩之情与自杀意念的减少相关（β = -0.12；p =.02）。此外，特定于新冠疫情的孤独感与过去一年的自杀意念呈正相关（β = 0.11；p =.01）。然而，非组织性宗教参与与新冠疫情相关的孤独感或自杀意念并无直接关联。
公共卫生官员应将感恩和孤独感视为可利用的机制，以便为在诸如新冠疫情及之后的公共卫生紧急情况期间为黑人成年人制定基于证据的自杀预防干预措施提供信息。
