According to a population-wide analyze, transgender adults in the United States who are 50 years of age or older are significantly more likely to consider suicide because of the cumulative effects of numerous problems in different facets of their lives.
In this sizable group of older transgender people, more than one-fourth ( 25.8 % ) admitted to having considered suicide at least once in the previous year. That is significantly higher than the estimated prevalence of 11–17 % older adults in the United States, which is currently estimated to be 4.7 % for the adult population as a whole.
On the Transgender Day of Remembrance, an annual event honoring the remembrance of trans people whose lives were lost as a result of acts of anti-travesty violence, the new results were published in the journal Aging &, Mental Health.
The conclusions of the study emphasize the critical need for interventions and focused assist to lower this population’s risk of suicidal ideation.
According to co-author Dr. Thomas Alex Washington, teacher and BASW Program Director at California State University, Long Beach,” Our research has exposed the distressing fact faced by several older trans people who are grappling with suicidal thoughts due to the cumulative effect of numerous undesirable elements on their lives.”
To address this growing concern, it is imperative that detailed support, advocacy, and mental health resources be provided.
A test of 3,724 transgender people in their 50s or older was the subject of this study, which used information from the 2015 US NTS study. In the previous year, more than 25 % of respondents ( 25.8 % ) said they had seriously considered taking their own lives.
Notably, this percentage decreased with age, falling from 31.7 % for people between the ages of 50 and 54 to 12.0 % for those over the age of 70 or older.
Workplace issues, interactions with professionals, the use of common services, personal safety, and socioeconomic disadvantages were the five areas of possible syndemic effects that the researchers looked at. They sought to ascertain the link between having difficulties in these places and the likelihood of having suicidal thoughts.
According to the study, older transgender people were significantly more likely to consider suicide in all five of the areas examined. The danger was increased:
- among those having difficulties in any of the studied areas, by 96 % to 121 %.
- When people encountered all of the difficulties within a particular domain, the percentage ranged from 258 % to 1, 552 %, depending on the specific area.
Exposure to any of the difficulties within a region increased the risk of considering death by 276 percent when all syndemic places were taken into account. Exposure to every challenge looked at increased the risk by 861 %.
This research shows that the majority of older trans people face ongoing difficulties in a variety of areas of their lives, significantly raising their chance of thinking about suicide. According to brother co-author Dr. Hugh Klein, who founded and serves as president of Kensington Research Institute and a research faculty associate at California State University, Long Beach, these challenges interact syndemoniously, increasing the risk of suicidal ideation.
However, cheerily, we discover that among the older adults who took part in this significant federal study, the risk of considering suicide tends to decline with age. This may be because transgender people’s mental health is positively impacted by increased resilience, adaptive strategies, changing life circumstances, and personal growth.
But, the investigation is not without its drawbacks. Given the rapidly changing political climate in the United States, it may not have accurately reflected the existing situation for older transgender people because it relied on data that was older than eight years old. Also, the study’s constrained analysis of syndemic effects might not take into account all the factors and experiences that affect older transgender adults.
In order to better understand and address the particular requirements and risks of older transgender people, the authors suggest that future research should examine a wider variety of factors, compare various age groups and statistical subpopulations, and look into complex aspects of mental health.
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