Muslim Mental Health Spotlight: Stanford Study Shows Adult Muslims Are Twice As Likely To Attempt Suicide Compared to Other Religious Groups

A Stanford University study reveals Muslim adults are twice as likely to attempt suicide compared to other faith groups in the U.S.

Pictured: Rania AwaadDr. Rania Awaad, Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Director of Stanford’s Muslim Mental Health & Islamic Psychology Lab at its School of Medicine, said the main takeaway was that Muslims are not immune to mental illness.

“Our study changes the discourse within the Muslim community that faith alone prevents mental health conditions or suicidality,” she told AMT. “The finding that U.S. Muslims were two times more likely to report a lifetime suicide attempt than other faith and non-faith groups is a wake-up call that draws attention to the potential scale of the problem.”

Dr. Awaad said the three steps we can take to lower suicide rates are education, research and access. The Muslim Mental Health & Islamic Psychology Lab is partnering with a mental health non-profit run by Awaad called Maristan on a campaign to offer suicide response training for Muslims. Their goal, she said, is to educate 500 imams and Muslim leaders by next year and 3,000 plus American mosques in five years.

Pictured: Dr. Awaad leading a suicide training in Minnesota last weekend

Though preliminary study indicates that discrimination and marginalization against Muslims are high suicide risk factors, the lab’s next study will dive deeper into why attempted suicide rates are so high among Muslims.

“It is also important to conduct an in-depth analysis as to the exact reasons why Muslim communities are severely impacted and to further study the Islam-inspired protective factors against suicide considering that the literature shows that Muslims still have the lowest rate of death by suicide,” she said.

Dr. Awaad said they plan to make this an annual study to ensure Muslim suicides are closely tracked.

Pictured: Naureen AhmedNaureen Ahmed, the co-founder of SEEMA, a mental health agency, says that the main issue Muslim communities face is being unable to seek help due to social taboos.

“Some Muslim communities still carry a lot of stigma, and are not ready to accept that the Muslim community is not immune to mental health disorders, including addictions, suicidal ideation, etcetera,” she said.

Ahmed formed SEEMA following the death of her mother, Seema, who suffered from depression and schizoaffective disorder. She passed away in 2012 but her mother’s condition was hidden from Ahmed until she was 25-years-old.

“I realized there must be others like myself who have a loved one with mental illness, who are shamed by the stigma of mental illness, are isolated by their communities, and are suffering alone,” she said. “Through support groups and workshops, SEEMA aspires to make sure no one suffers alone anymore.”

Ahmed said Muslim communities need education about mental health and the plethora of resources for those affected.

“So many families are unaware of the signs of symptoms of various disorders and don’t know how to support their loved ones effectively. The Muslim community needs to destigmatize mental illness and normalize therapy and psychiatric treatment, while still keeping your trust and faith in God. Muslims should not correlate mental illness with weakness of faith — rather treat mental illness like any other illness, that does not discriminate,” she said.

Echoing Awaad’s statement, she also believes that proper education is a proactive approach to helping people with mental illness before it’s too late.

In addition to the suicide study, the Yale School of Public Health also conducted a study in the State of Minnesota, which has a large Muslim community, that found the overall health of Muslims sharply deteriorated following Trump’s Muslim Ban.

Among over 250,000 patients from Muslim majority countries living in Minneapolis-St. Paul, there was an increase in missed primary care appointments and increased emergency department visits. Though the study showed that primary care visits for stress-related diagnoses were high for Muslim patients before the ban in 2017, the health of patients from banned countries visiting the emergency room increased after the ban.

Nabiha Hasan, a licensed master social worker for Niyyah Pictured: Nabiha HasanCounseling, believes the overall health of Muslims will have improved with the ban’s reversal, but agrees with Dr. Awaad that racial profiling, violence and the pressures from the COVID-19 pandemic will have “contributed to the fluctuating mental health of Muslims.”

As a qualified Muslim social worker, she has seen Muslims getting discouraged from seeking a mental health professional and being advised to pray instead.

“Due to the conservative cultural beliefs regarding suicidal ideation and mental health, individuals may be hesitant to mention these feelings to a trusted person or qualified mental health provider for fear of being marginalized. Throughout our work at Niyyah Counseling, we’ve found that Muslims often are told to ‘pray their worries away,’ and are not encouraged to seek support from a professional,” she said. “We wholeheartedly acknowledge that prayer is an essential part of everyday life, but do advise our clients that they have come to the right place to seek help and have no reason to feel ashamed.”