Organized by Michael Böss (engmb@dac.au.dk ) on behalf of Arctic Research Centre, Aarhus University.

This panel will be a forum for the discussion of issues relating to mental and social well-being in the Arctic, with a special focus on Greenland. The workshop will be interest for policy-makers, social workers, NGOs and leaders of indigenous peoples’ organisations.

Most previous studies of Arctic health among the indigenous populations have taken an epidemiological approach, relating it to dysfunctional family patterns, social disintegration and mental disorders, often linking these to acculturation, whereby health problems are seen to be precipitated by tensions and transitions between tradition and modernity. While the epidemiological approach has proved valuable, it ignores other important factors.  

The panel consists of two parts. The first part focuses on mental health of adolescents in Greenland. The second part consists of three papers on the broader contexts  in which social well-being should be discussed.  

13:15-15:30

Part 1

• A critical aspect of security and governance in the Arctic: The political epidemiology of elevated rates of suicide among the Inuit of Nunavut and Greenland
  Jack Hicks, PhD., Independent Researcher

Part 2

• Human capital: The most important ressource in the Arctic
  Aaja Chemnitz Larsen, MF, cand. scient. Adm.
• The Fragility of Relationships in the Danish Realm
  Nauja Lynge, debater and storyteller

ABSTRACTS:

A critical aspect of security and governance in the Arctic: The political epidemiology of elevated rates of suicide among the Inuit of Nunavut and Greenland
Jack Hicks, PhD., Independent Researcher

Presentation to the workshop on ‘Challenges to Mental Health and Physical Health in the Arctic’ at the Matchpoint Seminar ‘Security and Governance in the Globalised Arctic’, Aarhus, November 12/13, 2015

The WHO terms suicide a “largely preventable public health problem.” In recent decades the rate of suicide behaviour by Inuit in Nunavut has risen from unremarkable levels to a level almost 10 times the rate for Canada as a whole – and almost 40 times higher for Inuit boys aged 15 to 19. A similar epidemiological transition has occurred in Greenland. This presentation will present summary data on these tragic situations, review the results of research initiatives (including the suicide follow-back, or ‘psychological autopsy,’ study into suicide by Inuit in Nunavut), then review the history of suicide prevention efforts in the two Inuit regions. The conclusion is that, until recently, the governments of Nunavut/Canada and Greenland/Denmark have failed to take the kind of actions that have significantly reduced the rate of death by suicide in other jurisdictions (for example in the Canadian province of Quebec) -- despite the terrible toll that suicide has taken, and continues to take. A hypothesis is advanced to explain why each of the governments took so long to take action commensurate with the scale of the problem.