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CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Cultural Psychology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1418185
This article is part of the Research Topic Suicide Prevention in the Educational Context View all 6 articles

Culturally Contextualized Suicide Prevention for International Students: New Opportunities for Research and Practice

Provisionally accepted
  • 1 The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia
  • 2 Orygen Youth Health, Parkville, Victoria, Australia
  • 3 University of California, Los Angeles, California, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The rising incidence of suicide-related thoughts and behaviors among international students presents a significant public health challenge and growing concern among college campuses. Current intervention strategies often rely on Western-centric and colonized approaches developed and tested with primarily Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic (WEIRD) samples. Exclusion and historical underrepresentation of ethnoracially minoritized groups in suicide prevention treatment trials create gaps in advancing our science because they often miss the cultural contextualization crucial for effective prevention and intervention in diverse groups from different countries of origin. To address the limitations of these Western-centric strategies, we explored existing prevention recommendations and approaches through the lens of an expanded version of the newly developed Protective Factors Framework, tailored for non-Western cultural perspectives. We propose significant opportunities for enhancing current practices and point to promising future directions. The primary areas for development include: 1) bolstering community empowerment and ownership, 2) refining mechanisms of change to encompass multicultural viewpoints, and 3) focusing on effective implementation and thorough evaluation for ongoing refinement. This methodology not only shows promise for enhancing international student suicide prevention but also offers insights for broader application in suicide prevention among other culturally diverse populations.

    Keywords: culturally responsive, Foreign students, college students, university students, study abroad

    Received: 16 Apr 2024; Accepted: 26 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 McKay and Meza. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Samuel McKay, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.