The impact of colonisation, relocation of Indigenous people to missions and reserves, the grief and trauma resulting
from the removal of children, ongoing racism and continued socioeconomic disadvantage have had severe effects
on the mental health and wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (Swan & Raphael 1995). Trauma
can also have transgenerational effects whereby traumatised people may behave in dysfunctional and violent ways,
which then contribute to traumatising subsequent generations (Atkinson 2002). The Clearinghouse resource sheet
Trauma-informed services and trauma-specific care for Indigenous Australian children provides further information on
the effects of trauma (Atkinson forthcoming).
Suicide is an extremely distressing event that can have profoundly disruptive effects on the family, friends and
communities of those who take their own lives (Purdie et al. 2010). While suicide is believed to have been a rare
occurrence among Indigenous Australians in pre-colonial times, since the late 1970s it has become increasingly
prevalent and is now an issue of major concern for many Indigenous communities (Elliott-Farrelly 2004;
Hunter et al. 1999).
The incidence of suicide among Indigenous people is known to be substantially higher than for the
non-Indigenous population, but the exact difference is difficult to establish conclusively. This is due to data
quality issues with Indigenous deaths data and Indigenous population estimates (ABS 2012).
Based on data collected over 10 years from 2001 to 2010 from New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia,
Western Australia and the Northern Territory, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) estimates that the Indigenous
suicide rate is approximately double the non-Indigenous rate. The rate for Indigenous males was 33.0 per 100,000
compared with 16.5 for non-Indigenous males, while the rate for Indigenous females was 8.7 per 100,000 compared
with 4.5 for non-Indigenous females (ABS 2012).