Hidden Toll
Cohort Effect
"Echo Clusters" also represent a cohort effect in the life of Indigenous communities bonded by two decades of intense suicidal activity. The cohort has shared experiences of being young, male, unemployed, with excessive alcohol consumption, drug abuse, and the common experience of hanging.
The cohort are predominantly male and aged 15–34 years who now have a lifetime risk for suicide, with a younger cohort emerging, imitating the suicidal activity of the older cohort.
The historical events of the past two decades in these Indigenous communities may be repeated unless the suicide contagion cycle is broken. The impact of the experience on the cohort needs to be reconciled, the contagion and clusters contained, and a new pathway for life provided.
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Articles
Number of suicides and age groups demonstrating cohort effect - 82% of Indigenous suicide victims were aged 15 to 34 years in the NT from 2000-2005.
