Quantitative Research on Individual and Communal Perspectives on Suicide in the Hasidic Community of Borough Park: Risk Factors, Protective Factors, and Resources

Abstract The Hasidic community of Borough Park is a distinct religious subpopulation in the United States whose relationship to suicide has never been examined empirically. This study is the first to explore the socio-religious factors, predictors, and resources related to suicide within the community. Using a cross-sectional design, a researcher-created survey administered in English and Yiddish gathered responses from 150 participants (52% male, 47% female; ages 18 to 78, mean 33), analyzed in STATA BE with chi-square tests, t-tests, and binary and ordinal regressions across 21 hypotheses derived from three research questions and the predictors age, sex, affiliation, residence, and self-identification. Findings indicate that the same social and religious elements of the community are perceived as protective by some members and as risk factors by others, depending on the element itself and on the participant’s position within the community, a dynamic of conditional protection. The findings also point to a substantial gap in available resources for suicide prevention, intervention, and postvention. Because insular religious and cultural communities with distinct socio-religious norms exist worldwide, and because prevention cannot address culturally specific risk without research that examines such communities on their own terms, this study offers a framework for understanding how social norms, religious belief and practice, and attitudes toward mental health inform a community’s understanding of suicide, and for building the culturally responsive clinical practice these populations require.