Urgent call for culturally tailored suicide prevention for Māori and Pasifika

Warning: This story contains details about suicide.

New research has revealed that Māori and Pacific females in New Zealand are at a significantly higher risk of alcohol-related suicides, highlighting the urgent need for targeted public health interventions.

The study is a follow-up from a previous one, which revealed that 26.6 per cent of suicides included acute alcohol use (AAU) and was higher for Māori and Pacific.

However, the data also showed that females and males had a similar risk of having alcohol involved.

One of the researchers, Dr Jaimie Dikstaal, said the follow-up study aimed to look at the difference between males and females.

Speaking to William Terite on Pacific Mornings, she explained that there was a need to understand why it was equal or equivalently higher in New Zealand for females.

“What we found was that the characteristics that were associated with having acute alcohol use differed between males and females.

“For females, ethnicity was the characteristic which most predicted whether the suicide involved acute alcohol use or not.

“It was unexpected because in the previous study I mentioned, it showed that Māori and Pacific’s total populations had this higher risk.

“But based on our findings, it suggests that the inequities by ethnicity is almost maybe entirely driven by the female risk. So that was unexpected.”

Dr Jaimie Dikstaal. Photo/University of Otago

Although the study aimed to prove Māori and Pacific women had a higher risk of suicide involving AAU, Dikstaal said there were factors they were aware of that contributed to the imbalance.

“We know from other research that there could be cumulative risks such as exposure or experiences with racism or trauma, which may influence alcohol motivations, may influence alcohol consumption and may influence suicidal behaviours.”

The findings of this study arrive at a time when New Zealand’s government is shifting its focus from equity-based Māori and Pacific health measures to a more needs-based approach.

Dikstaal expressed concerns about how this shift could affect vulnerable populations.

“In this particular situation, ethnicity serves as a marker for other underlying factors that increase the risk of poor health outcomes. Ignoring this could lead to worse outcomes for Māori and Pacific communities.”

She also called for stronger national alcohol policies to complement targeted interventions.

“While the study shows that Māori and Pacific females are particularly vulnerable, alcohol-related harm affects everyone.

“We need population-level policies that address alcohol misuse as a public health issue for the entire country.”

Watch Dr Dikstaal's full interview on Pacific Mornings here