Suicide is a Predominantly Male Problem
Randolph Nesse, M.D. and colleagues at the
University of Michigan examined premature deaths
among men in 20 countries. They suggest that as
many as 375,000 lives could be saved in the US
alone if male mortality rates were brought into
line with those of women. Being male is now the
single largest demographic factor for early death,
the study concluded. "If you could make male
mortality rates the same as female rates, you would
do more good than curing cancer," Nesse
says.[i]
Nowhere is this more evident than in looking at
suicide rates. Each year, about 31,000 Americans
commit suicide, making it the eighth leading cause
of death in the United States. Almost every
American has a relative, friend, or acquaintance
who has killed himself. But what is often lost in
the statistics and reports of suicide among
Americans, or our youth or
high school or college
students is that the vast majority of these deaths
occur in males.
Once thought to be primarily a white male
problem, suicide is increasingly dramatically in
the Black community. The staggering growth in
the number of black male suicides over the last 10
years is shocking, says Susan Burks a writer
for the Denver Post. Suicide is now
the third-leading cause of death for
African-American males ages 15 through 24. Suicide
among black youth, once uncommon, showed a rate
increase of 233 percent increase for boys between
the ages of 10 and 14. Black teenagers in this
country are killing themselves at a rate of 5 per
day. Sixty-five percent of them are using firearms
to do it.[ii]
Whether Black, Caucasian, or any other racial or
ethnic group, the number one risk factor for
suicide is being male. In 1999, the suicide death
rate was 18.2/100,000 among males, and 4.1 in
females. This means that male suicides outnumbered
female suicides by a ratio of more than 4 to
1.[iii] The imbalance between the number of
males who kill themselves and the number of females
who die by their own hand is evident throughout the
life-cycle as the following table illustrates:
Estimated Annual Suicide Rate per
100,000 by Age and Gender[iv]
Age Range
|
Men
|
Women
|
Male:Female
|
5-14
|
1.3
|
0.4
|
3.25
|
15-19
|
18.5
|
3.7
|
6.08
|
20-24
|
27.2
|
4.0
|
7.35
|
25-64
|
25.6
|
6.1
|
4.20
|
65-85
|
49.4
|
5.1
|
9.68
|
85+
|
75.0
|
5.0
|
15.00
|
Points of Understanding
- Even for children between 5 and 14 years of
age when suicides are low, males are more than 3
times as likely to kill themselves as
females.
- For teens between 15 and 19 the ratio nearly
doubles with males killing themselves 6 times as
often as females.
- During the young adult years, 20-24, the
ratio jumps again to over 7 times.
- In the adult years between 25 and 64, the
male rate drops slightly and the female rate
increases, but the ratio of male to female
suicides is still more than 4 to 1.
- However, in the retirement years after age
between 65 and 85, the ratio more than doubles
with more than 9 men killing themselves for
every woman.
- For the old, old over 85, the
female rate drops slightly while the male rate
increases dramatically. For those men who are
fortunate to be alive after 85 fifteen times
more men kill themselves than women.
- There seem to be a number of factors that
may account for the increased rate as men age.
Being socially isolated, divorced, or widowed
are important risk factors for
men.[v]
The male suicide rate is also worrisome outside
the United States. Worldwide, suicide claimed the
lives of an estimated 815,000 people in 2000, the
majority of which were males.[vi] The
extent to which males outnumber females in suicide
varies by country. For instance, in certain parts
of China, where people most often kill themselves
using chemical poisons found on rural farms, the
numbers are nearly equal. However, in all other
countries in the world males outnumber females. The
sex disparity is especially high in countries of
Eastern Europe and Latin America. Interestingly
Puerto Rico has the highest ratio, with males
killing themselves at rates more than 10 times that
of females.[vii]
It is clear that men kill themselves at rates
many times that of females in nearly all parts of
the world. Yet females attempt suicide much more
often. Most studies suggest that females experience
depression at rates twice as high as males. Yet, we
know that depression is highly associated with
suicide. This raises some interesting and important
questions. If the studies show that females tend to
be more depressed than males, why do males have
such high suicide rates? Are females really more
depressed than males or are we failing to recognize
depression in men? To answer these questions we
need to delve more deeply into the world of
depression.
[i] Being a man is bad for health. BBC
News. July 24, 2002.
[ii] Susan Burks. Denver Post, January
3, 2003, Accessed on the internet January 12, 2003
at www.denverpost.com/Stories

[iii] National Center for Health
Statistics: Health, United States, 2002.
Hyattsville, MD, Table 30.
[iv] Summarized from R. Anderson, K.
Kochanek & S. Murphy. Report of final mortality
statistics. Monthly Vital Statistics Report, 45
(11), Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health
Statistics, 1997 and from G. Murphy. Why women are
less likely than men to commit suicide.
Comprehensive Psychiatry, 39, 1998, 165-175.
Reported in Sam V. Cochran and Fredric E.
Rabinowitz. Men and Depression: Clinical and
Empirical Perspectives. San Diego, California:
Academic Press, 2000, p. 141.
[v] Centers for Disease Control: Suicide
among Older Persons, United States, 1980-1992.
Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, January 12,
1996.
[vi] E.G. Krug, et al., eds. World
report on violence and health. Geneva, World Health
Organization, 2002, 185.
[vii] Ibid., 186-187.
©2010 Jed
Diamond
See Books,
Issues
+ Suicide
* * *
Wealth can't buy health, but health can buy
wealth. - Henry David Thoreau

Jed Diamond
is the internationally best-selling author of seven
books including Male
Menopause, now
translated into 17 foreign languages and his
latest book, The
Irritable Male Syndrome: Managing. The 4 Key Causes
of Depression and
Aggression. For over
38 years he has been a leader in the field of men's
health. He is a member of the International
Scientific Board of the World Congress on
Mens Health and has been on the Board of
Advisors of the Mens Health Network since its
founding in 1992. His work has been featured in
major newspapers throughout the United States
including the New York Times, Boston Globe, Wall
Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, and USA
Today. He has been featured on more than 1,000
radio and T.V. programs including The View with
Barbara Walters, Good Morning America, Inside
Edition, CBS, NBC, and Fox News, To Tell the Truth,
Extra, Leeza, Geraldo, and Joan Rivers. He also did
a nationally televised special on Male Menopause
for PBS. He looks forward to your feedback.
E-Mail.
You can visit his website at www.menalive.com


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