“Suicide Rates Among Inuit Are Shockingly High At Six To

â€Å"Suicide rates among Inuit are shockingly high at six to 11 times the Canadian average. In Nunavut in particular, 27% of all deaths since 1999 have been suicides. This is one of the highest suicide rates in the world, and it continues to rise, especially among youth.† (â€Å"Aboriginal Mental Health† :2015) Canadian Inuit are experiencing a suicide epidemic which has presented itself as a quite pervasive issue. This issue is prevalent on a grand scale yet, at the same time, not many people in the Western hemisphere are aware of its crippling effects on Nunavut, Canada’s adolescent Inuit population. Nunavut is a region in Canada which located in the northernmost part of the country and receives drastic changes in the amounts of sunlight†¦show more content†¦Furthermore, historically, the Canadian government has implemented intervention programs that have been unsuccessful due to their lack of cultural know-how and population-level approaches. Physical and Biological Factors The Canadian Arctic region of Nunavut hosts dramatic fluctuations in seasons and, most importantly, fluctuations in the amount of sunlight available due to their Northern-most geography (â€Å"Nunavut FAQ’s†: 2017). Suicide rates among the Canadian Inuit population, particularly among adolescents aged 15-24, in the region of Nunavut are exponentially higher than that of Canada as a whole (â€Å"Aboriginal Mental Health†: 2015). In fact, â€Å"In Nunavut in particular, 27% of all deaths since 1999 have been suicides. This is one of the highest suicide rates in the world, and it continues to rise, especially among youth.† (â€Å"Aboriginal Mental Health†: 2015) Among other factors, these suicide rates have much of their cause due to the physical environment and its effects on the biology of an individual living in this region. For example, in any given portion of Nunavut an Inuit individual can experience extremes like twenty four hours of daylight i n June to twenty four hours of darkness in December (â€Å"Nunavut FAQ’s†: 2017) . Other areas of Nunavut can experience more hours of light in the winter as opposed to during the summer months. This fact by itself can have drastic effects on the