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In assessing how to address high rates of suicidal distress and death by suicide in Indigenous communities, Jeffrey Ansloos has seen much of the focus centred on mental health and adjacent services. However, it’s not the only piece of the puzzle, he says. 

“In many ways, the inaccessibility of culturally safe mental health services is indicative of a broader set of social issues, political realities, and contextual challenges,” said Ansloos, the Tier II Canada Research Chair in Critical Studies in Indigenous Health and Social Action on Suicide.

An underexamined context involves the rapid extractive industrialization unfolding across rural and northern regions of Canada, alongside the intertwined health and social impacts for Indigenous communities stemming from the rise of mining, hydro-development, forestry, and other extractive industries operating in these territories. Although research on suicide in Indigenous communities has often explored sociocultural and psychological risk factors, studies on environmental dimensions are scare, and there is almost no focus on the comprehensive effects of extractive industrial development on suicidal distress.

“When I speak directly to community members, environmental issues are often acknowledged as in the mix of what is happening with to the complex crisis of suicide. Our work aims to demonstrate the direct and indirect impacts of these environmental changes on the prevalence of suicidal distress in Indigenous communities. More importantly, it is going to help us work to address those dimensions in prevention models.” said Ansloos, a citizen of Fisher River Cree Nation.

To delve deeper, Associate Professor Ansloos, and researchers with the Critical Health and Social Action Lab are conducting a collaborative study with five Indigenous communities. These communities have experiences substantival environmental changes due to extractive industrialization and recurring suicide clusters in the past decade across Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. This research is supported by an Insight Grant awarded to Ansloos by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council its October 2022 competition. 

This study will help connect the dots between the high prevalence of suicide in Indigenous communities and the extractive resource sector. It also aims to create key processes and mechanisms for suicide prevention, or what Ansloos calls “life promotion,” that are informed by how Indigenous communities have responded to suicide in such contexts. The work will seek insight from local community leaders, industrial workers, activists, lawyers, teachers, health promoters, and mental health services to build useful knowledge that is not extractive but deepens a sense of strength and hope, says Ansloos. 

Ansloos will not be alone in this task. He has invited long-time collaborator Dr. Jennifer White of the University of Victoria, and Dr.  M. Murphy, and a professor of history and women, and gender studies to help facilitate the work. For Ansloos, each researcher brings unique tools to the endeavour.

“Professor White is one of Canada's leading suicide studies and youth suicide prevention scholars,” says Ansloos. “In particular, she's had a very significant role in shaping a more critical, community based and contextually engaged approach to Indigenous youth suicide prevention.”

Over the years, White has helped Ansloos think about intentionally about the socioecological and political contexts of suicide. “All these things, from housing, to environmental management, to food and water security, are implicated very centrally in the project of suicide prevention. That’s something [White’s] work has really helped me to grapple with – and in thinking about the issues in more interconnected ways...”

Meanwhile, Professor Murphy is considered a national and international . “Murphy not only builds transformative projects, but also engages in research through partnering and building deep, careful, and relationally accountable work with First Nations throughout Ontario,” says Ansloos.

In the early stages

The project is already underway, and Ansloos’ team is building meaningful partnerships with communities. These collaborations prioritize both research initiatives and ongoing support for the development and implementation of suicide prevention strategies. Through a research design that is participatory, community members and students gain access to a wide range of research skills, will be involved in codesigning a framework for mental health impact assessments, and experience delivering mental wellness and life promotion programs. 

“What I've learned is that these offerings are not just helpful—they're foundational to ethical research in this area. Research should lift communities up, build on strengths, and move forward in ways that enhance wellness. Research in our communities should not make life harder. It must contribute to making life better for people,” says Ansloos.

The project is informed by a deep understanding of pain, grief and trauma, and it “requires us to be deeply full of care,” says Ansloos. “It also requires building trust – we only want to move forward and work when we have a deep sense of relational accountability and trust in the work that we're doing.”