Sense of Belonging and Youth Suicidal Behaviors: What Community and School Got to Do with It?

Background and Purpose: Suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people ages 10-24 in the United States. Nationwide 16% of high school students seriously considered suicide and 8% attempted suicide. The literature tends to focus on individual and family-level explanations, such as depressive symptoms and/or strained parent-child relations. There has been a gradual shift, however, towards considering the impact of school and community environment on youth suicidal behaviors. For example, the CDC encourages youth suicide prevention strategies to incorporate issues related to school safety and connectedness. Nevertheless, few studies have investigated the impact of school and community factors on youth suicidal behaviors. Guided by the concept of belonging in Thomas Joiner’s interpersonal theory of suicide, the current study examined the effect of school and community belonging on youth suicide ideation and attempts.  

Methods: This study used cross-sectional data from the Texas 2013 Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS). Texas YRBS was selected for the analysis given its inclusion of questions about protective factors on the 96-question, self-administered survey that assessed a variety of health and mental health-related behaviors. The sample consisted of 3,181 high school students. The independent variables included feeling unsafe at school, being bullied at school, feeling threatened at school, school involvement (“students help decide what goes on in your school”), participating in community activities, and community belonging (“feeling like you matter to people in your community”). Statistical analyses were conducted on weighted data using SPSS Complex Samples software to account for the complex sampling designs. Logistic regressions were run to calculate odds ratios (OR) for each of the two dependent variables: suicide ideation, and suicide attempt.

Results: 17% of Texas high school youth considered suicide and 9% attempted suicide within the 12-month period prior to the survey. The first model (χ²=3,747 [df=16], p < .001) showed that students who experienced school bullying (OR=3.39, p<.001), felt unsafe at school (OR=1.75, p<.05), felt threatened at school (OR=1.31, p<.001), and had lower levels of community belonging (OR=.66, p<.001) were more likely to ideate about suicide. Similarly, in the model on suicide attempts (χ²=740 [df=16], p < .001), school bullying (OR=2.64., p<.001), feeling unsafe at school (OR=3.03, p<.001), being threatened at school (OR=1.43, p<.001), and community belonging (OR=.79, p<.01) emerged as significant factors. In particular, lack of school safety was found to be the strongest correlate of suicide attempt among Texas youth.

Conclusions and Implications: This study confirmed the importance of school and community belonging in youth suicidal behaviors. School bullying, feeing unsafe at school, and being threatened at a school increased the odds of suicide ideation and attempts, and community belonging reduced the odds of suicide ideation and attempts. Our results point to the importance of engaging schools and communities in suicide prevention efforts. Ultimately, schools and communities can play an active role in suicide prevention by fostering safe and inclusive environments and helping youth to strengthen their experiences of belonging among peers and adults.