A silent epidemic of male suicide (2011)

http://www.bcmj.org/articles/silent-epidemic-male-suicide

by MollyR • 10 years ago

112 91 10 years ago

ThatGeoGuy• 10 years ago

Note for those who didn't notice: although this appears to be the first time this has been posted to Hacker News, it was from 2011.

dang: Add (2011) to the title?

cloudjacker• 10 years ago

"These explanations suggest that when compared with suicidal women, men who reach the point of suicidal action are: [More X, More Y, More Z].... Despite some limited theoretical and empirical support, we currently lack strong evidence to support these explanations."

Welp there goes the whole thread guys

Any follow up study?

roghummal• 10 years ago

X, Y, Z, A, B, C:

• hopeless.

• clearly resolved to die.

• likely to be intoxicated and thus more disinhibited.

• willing to carry out actions that might leave them injured or disfigured.

• unconcerned with consequences because of a high risk-taking orientation.

• likely to have a greater capacity to enact lethal self-injury.

cup• 10 years ago

Is it silent?

The statistics and data aggregation seem pretty robust. Most governments publish data reinforcing that suicide is a huge risk factor for men.

I don't think It's a silent epidemic as much as It's just not an important epidemic. Society doesn't necessarily rank the problem of male suicide high enough to fix or fund.

dalke• 10 years ago

"Silent" here means in part "a lack of public awareness, a paucity of explanatory research, and the reluctance of men to seek help for suicide-related concerns".

The assertion is that the low ranking you mention is made through general societal ignorance.

Compare, for example, to the high number of deaths caused by driving. Those risks are well known, taught in schools, and discussed often. This is a much more informed ranking.

yomly• 10 years ago

It's just not an important epidemic.

"Aye,there's the rub..."

Men are more likely to succumb to alcoholism[0]

Men are more likely to succumb to gambling problems[1]

An estimated 84% of homeless are male in the UK[2]

Alcoholism and gambling are some choice indicators of inequality that Tony Judt liked to reference in Ill Fares the Land[3]. The gender disparity is well documented at the top (e.g. Gender diversity for C-level) but this is the 1% of the 1%. I'm not denying that the lack of diversity is alarming but these men are the men that bested many other men. However the fact that there is a lack of diversity on both sides of the spectrum seems to be an inconvenient truth that most prefer to avoid.

[0]http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15533281

[1]https://www.responsiblegambling.vic.gov.au/newsroom/media-re...

[2]https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/may/07/men-ge...

[3]https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0718191412/

dreta• 10 years ago

don’t forget the lack of help for male domestic abuse victims

sien• 10 years ago

It might also be because people are wary of talking about suicide because there is some evidence that making people think about it more may make it occur more.

Also, it might be because society sort of accepts that old men are allowed to kill themselves. The highest suicide rate is for 75+ year old men.

http://www.mindframe-media.info/for-media/reporting-suicide/...

I don't agree with either of these things, I'm just putting them forward as to why people suicide is less prominent in public health discussions.

cuckcuckspruce2• 10 years ago

It's bound up in the concept of male disposability.

As a society we're arguing about whether or not to let women in the military (we should), whether they should have the same standards are men (they should), whether they should be allowed to serve in combat roles if they meet that standard (they should), and whether we should value their service equally (we should).

However, any time anybody raises the banner to go to war we don't stop to think about the thousands of men, ripped apart from the life they know, ripped apart from their families, sent off as fresh meat to the grinder, sent off into a hailstorm of bullets, mortars, rockets, missiles, and bombs to kill or be killed, maim or be killed. Nobody but their immediate family cares whether or not the come home, and nobody but their family cares what they went through while they were there. Society is perfectly fine with throwing away men, shaming them into making the ultimate sacrifice for their county. Why would they care if a few thousand off themselves every year?

wyldfire• 10 years ago

Is the incidence increasing over time? That wasn't clear from what I read. It says the incidence is high but doesn't include data about how it changes over time.

nyolfen• 10 years ago

Although men die by suicide at a higher rate, women have a higher rate of attempting suicide.16 This pattern is evident among youth and persists over the lifespan.

Why is this? I've read before that modes of suicide tend to be gendered -- ie, gunshots to the head for men and overdoses for women. Is this the entire story? Are women more likely, consciously or unconsciously, to be social signaling for support than men when they attempt suicide?

I lost my brother to suicide three years ago. I began attending counseling this year after a protracted period of personal turmoil in its aftermath, and it's a topic I spend a lot of thought on. When I was younger and less psychologically moored I thought of suicide as the ultimate lever I could wield over my own fate. Not so much these days, though.

vertex-four2• 10 years ago

Honestly, I have a suspicion that people go for the methods available to them - gun ownership is gendered in the first place.

Joeboy• 10 years ago

I believe (but do not have a citation) the gender split also occurs here in the UK, where basically nobody has guns.

R_haterade• 10 years ago

It's possible that men survive attempts and tell no one as well, whereas a woman might. Who can really say?

whybroke2• 10 years ago

To survive an attempted gun suicide is such an unspeakably, crippling and horrendous thing, it's almost unbearable to contemplate. It is certainly not something that could easily be hidden.

Mz3• 10 years ago

I am a woman. I attempted suicide at age 17.

I went though my desk drawers, etc. I found some pills, maybe decongestants, and decided that would probably not kill me. I found an exacto knife in my art supplies and decided to cut my wrist with it. I failed to hit a major artery. There was very little blood.

In contrast, I believe my brother's room had a gun, a bow and an encyclopedia of true crime. Had he attempted suicide while locked in his room, there would have been dramatically greater access to effective means and useful information for actually ending up dead.

I will suggest that women generally have less access to effective means, generally have less exposure to subjects relevant to figuring out how to end a life, and that women are typically subjected to a greater amount of social control that limits their ability to act.

Men are more likely to be infantrymen, police officers, hunt as a hobby, etc. Thus, they are just more likely to know how to kill something.

Additionally, successful suicides occur when you are alone. Men seem to have more opportunities to actually be alone, an observation I made years ago on a different forum about a different subject.

Women typically make less money than men, so they are less likely to be able to afford a place of their own. They tend to have roommates. Following a divorce, women are more likely to get custody of the children. So, post divorce, men are more likely to be living alone, women are more likely to be living with kids.

Etc.

If you attempt suicide with other people at home, you need to keep it a secret. If they find out, they will stop you. Simply having other people around is a deterrent to succeeding. It is hard to very quietly, secretly off yourself.

So, I think one factor is that women are less likely to have sufficient privacy, for lack of a better word, to succeed.

duaneb5• 10 years ago

This seems to be American centric, though. Even when the means (eg hanging and poison mentioned earlier) are readily available to both sexes there is still a sexed difference.

sevenless9• 10 years ago

I don't generally like evolutionary "just so stories", but men are the more expendable sex, when you get down to it. Historically, only half of men ever passed their genes on, whereas nearly all women did. It makes sense that men should tend to be shorter-lived, less squeamish, more violent (to men, women and themselves), and more willing to take life-threatening risks - all of which the homicide, suicide and accident rates bear out, worldwide. If you consider the difference between sexes for the homicide rate, it's surprising the female suicide rate is as much as half of men's.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/09/040920063537.h...

nv-vn• 10 years ago

I think especially with the types of methods men vs. women use, a lot of men are much more committed to their actions when they choose suicide. By hanging oneself (something that probably isn't any more difficult for one gender or the other), you basically "guarantee" your own death. Making the decision to overdose on something gives you a chance to stop earlier and gives others more time to step in. I think this is an unconscious factor based on the causes that the decision stems from -- for example, it seems that women with bipolar disorder get more depressive episodes. Since they're more likely to try suicide during these episodes, that would explain the increased rate. Yet because a higher ratio of the men committing suicide are not suffering from bipolar disorder, it might mean that they've had depression for a larger period of time (making them take a firmer decision on how to end their life).

jwp729• 10 years ago

I'm sorry to hear about your loss. I'm glad you're able to get help through counseling.

igravious• 10 years ago

Are women more likely, consciously or unconsciously, to be social signaling for support than men when they attempt suicide?

No they are not. You answered your own question. Women are more likely to use non-violent methods, men are more likely to use violent methods. Violent methods are more likely to kill the victim, therefore more men die by suicide as a percentage overall.

Now your question becomes. Why those methods? And the answer I believe is not social signalling. Or at least it is not the main factor. I believe the answer is to do with aggression (being higher in men than women due to testosterone) and the unwillingness to cause disfigurement (because of social reasons). Source, I read a scientific book on it.

dempseye• 10 years ago

No they are not.

How do you know?

asher_• 10 years ago

This is a complex issue. There are a few things to keep in mind when thinking about suicide attempts.

The first thing is that the paper cited in this article to back up this claim actually does not say that females have a higher rate of attempting suicide, but rather that they have a higher rate of deliberate self-harm. These two things are not equivalent.

The second factor to consider is the availability and accuracy of self-harm or suicide attempt statistics. Males are far less likely to seek professional help, as noted in the article, so it stands to reason that far more male suicide attempts and actions of deliberate self harm go unreported, even if this data is gathered independently, as males are in general less likely to share such things.

Suicide attempts are often unsuccessful. It's harder to complete than is the general belief. Success rates are something like 5%. If we were to assume that the base incidence rate of suicide attempts for males and females was the same, we would still expect more men to die by suicide because of the related statistics about seeking help/treatment. I'm not saying that the base levels are the same, I'm just giving a hypothetical to show how the variables interact.

This is not a simple picture. The personal and cultural stigma around suicide makes things like this very difficult to untangle.

rcpt• 10 years ago

Very recently I lost my brother to. How do you deal with this? My contact is in my profile.

cheez• 10 years ago

I have experience with suicidal women (no, I do not attract a certain type): it is definitely attention-seeking behavior. Not in the way like dressing provocatively in the wrong contexts can be attention seeking (think clubbing outfits to go grocery shopping) but attention seeking nonetheless.

Yes, it's a data point of a handful, but I am thoroughly convinced that women are generally way too self protective to actually commit suicide. Now if a woman does actually do it.... She was seriously gone.

I've never known a suicidal man, does not mean they don't exist, just that they don't talk about it.

holdenc• 10 years ago

It would be interesting to see incidences distributed over different types of divorce outcomes.

ransom1538• 10 years ago

There is a decent documentary that watches a few teams respond to "Gun Violence" (1). It was basically a tour of people shooting themselves or their family. A bizarre left turn into mental health questions and responsibilities. It is clear that, of ~33k gun deaths (2) - most are suicides. Meanwhile, homicide is almost non-exisitant (3) - but it is all i see on the news :(

1) http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/requiem-for-the-dead-americ...

2) "11,208 homicides (3.5 per 100,000); 21,175 suicides; 505 deaths due to accidental/negligent discharge of a firearm; and 2818 deaths due to firearms-use with "undetermined" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_Sta...

3) http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-06-16/fbi-us-homicide-rat...

vacri2• 10 years ago

Meanwhile, homicide is almost non-exisitant (3)

Homicide accounting for a third of gun-related deaths in the US, and a homicide rate four times higher than other western democracies... is "almost non-existent"!?

sevenless9• 10 years ago

It is true that most Americans are very unlikely to be murdered. This homicide rate varies widely over age, sex and race, and (as per CDC) homicide is not a leading cause of death for most demographics. Young black males are, unfortunately, the exception.

sevenless9• 10 years ago

11K deaths from homicide isn't "almost non existent". Now it is true the burden is concentrated in young males, especially black males. This is not to say a death from homicide is intrinsically more important than from suicide, that firearms aren't linked to higher suicide rates, or that gun suicide isn't worth preventing - clearly it is.

As for why the news focuses on homicide, especially spectacular mass murders, "if it bleeds it leads".

BirdieNZ• 10 years ago

I don't know about other countries, but in New Zealand, the media specifically doesn't report on suicides (or omits the cause of death, if it's a high profile death by suicide). This is because of the fear of copy-cat suicides.

Godel_unicode• 10 years ago

One reason for the lack of coverage is the propensity for media coverage of suicide to lead to copycats. There's an interesting question here about how to have a rational discussion about gun suicide without provoking more suicides.

http://jechbeta.bmj.com/content/57/4/238.short

sevenless9• 10 years ago

The possibility of a copycat effect does not seem to deter the media from frenzied, hyperbolic reporting on mass shootings or terrorism.

slr555• 10 years ago

There are several sources for comparable US data. Examining page 6 of the PDF below demonstrates that the suicide rates for middle aged to elderly Caucasian males in the US is higher in 2014 by a factor of ~3 or in cases more compared to women and other ethnicities. Despite the prevalence of suicide in this group the issue is seldom covered by the media or addressed in public policy debates.

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/suicide/rates_1999_2014....

jomamaxx• 10 years ago

Men are far more likely to die from all sorts of things, esp. occupational hazards. Nobody cares.

cloakandswagger2• 10 years ago

There are far more pressing injustices to prosecute, like the male/female "wage gap" [0]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/karinagness/2016/04/12/dont-buy-...

erroneousfunk2• 10 years ago

Right, men tend to take on jobs that are physically demanding, or may have more dangerous aspects at higher rates. The reasons are complex. Pressure to support a family or make more money despite potential harm to themselves, unwillingness to turn down difficult assignments to avoid seeming weak, valuing personal strength and "toughness," less dangerous jobs are unavailable for their experience and/or location and they have to take whatever's available (again, social pressure means they "have" to work in the first place, no matter what the job is). Social stigma towards blue collar workers and manual laborers, and getting trapped in these jobs due to an inability to find safer employment while doing them.

Women tend to take on jobs that pay less, have fewer responsibilities, or they take more time away from the workforce. The reasons are complex. Pressure to devote more time and energy towards family and childcare directly, and conversely, less pressure to support the family financially -- sometimes even before children enter the picture. Inability to get childcare support from spouse/family/outside sources, not wanting to seem too "tough" or "aggressive," avoiding social stigma towards working mothers, pulling out of the workforce to avoid restrictive maternity leave policies, difficulties re-entering the workforce afterwards.

Lots of people face lots of problems.

Animats• 10 years ago

Male suicides are up in the US, too. The US has about 40,000 suicides a year. "Suicide is concentrated among those whom our society values least."[1]. The big jump is among white, middle-aged men and women.

"The states with the highest suicide rates tend to be clustered in the South and the Mountain West... This suicide belt is also defined by what psychologists have dubbed a “culture of honor.” ... That means higher murder rates but even more-exaggerated suicide rates, a fact he attributes to millennia of old masculine codes meeting a disappearance of blue-collar jobs unlikely to reverse itself. Give me honor, or give me death was a safer personal motto when honor could still be readily found." - Newsweek

Will this be the fate of today's "brogrammers" in their 40s?

[1] http://www.newsweek.com/2013/05/22/why-suicide-has-become-ep...

seizethecheese3• 10 years ago

Will this be the fate of today's "brogrammers" in their 40s?

Even if software eats software development, today's "brogrammers" will still be in good shape, having a working knowledge of technology.

The people who are currently in good shape who are more at risk, in my opinion, are the millions of Accounting and Finance professionals who use Excel all day.

ams6110• 10 years ago

the millions of Accounting and Finance professionals who use Excel all day.

Just like they did 20 years ago? The trend doesn't seem to be that those jobs are going anywhere.

sevenless9• 10 years ago

Do you have any demeaning nicknames for those who work in female dominated professions too?

duaneb5• 10 years ago

Whatever. Zeitgeist labor force. It doesn't need to be bound to sex to be meaningful.

cuckcuckspruce2• 10 years ago

The term "brogrammer" has always sounded like sour grapes to me. It smacks of "oh, they're just letting ANYBODY be a programmer these days, all you have to do is go to school and be good at it, you don't have to be borderline socially awkward to do it anymore," and, if anything seems to be more judgemental and exclusionary than anybody in the "brogrammer" camp would be.

hkmurakami• 10 years ago

That eerily echoes the culture in Japan, where male suicides are similarly high.

Tragic on both sides.

whybroke2• 10 years ago

Well after 40, whether bro or not they certainly won't be hired as programmers anymore.

booleandilemma• 10 years ago

The problem is at least partly societal. A large portion of life is made up of social interaction, and men and women have very different experiences of this. People are generally nicer to women. Men are treated as being less important than women (think: women and children first). With this in mind, it's not surprising men are more likely to kill themselves.

nilved• 10 years ago

People are generally nicer to women.

This sentence is a lot more contentious than you let on.

cloakandswagger2• 10 years ago

I can only offer anecdotal evidence (I don't know how you'd even begin to measure this), but it's absolutely true that your average person is more likely to jump to the defense of a woman, or be more appalled at violence or injustice perpetrated against a woman.

Violence against men seems to be much easier for society to stomach, probably due to frequency and the perception that a man is stronger/tougher and should be able to protect himself.

narag2• 10 years ago

Males bear the burden of a lot of aggresivity hormones. That and the fact males are stronger would explain men commit more violent crimes, hurt women more often than the other way around and also suicide more often.

I don't think men are treated as less important. The "women and children first" is more of a societal compensation for the fact that men can go first because we're, on average, stronger and more aggresive.

antisthenes• 10 years ago

we're, on average, stronger and more aggresive.

And more disposable. Anyone who's even tangentially familiar with sexual dimorphism, selection and Bateman's principle can recognize why females enjoy favorable treatment in that regard.

ahoka• 10 years ago

This is plain misandrism and should have no place on HN.

erroneousfunk2• 10 years ago

Minor point, but "women and children first" is mostly a romantic fiction, with couple important historic occurrences (like the Titanic, obviously) which kind of cemented it in popular culture, if not in "actual practiced fact". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_and_children_first

adamnemecek• 10 years ago

I think that to a large extent this has something to do with the (mostly terrible) educational system just about everywhere in the world. Your education kind of sets a course for the rest your life and it's a travesty that very productive years are basically squandered because the system is setup for maybe 19th century.

wingless• 10 years ago

Men are disposable. This idea is wired inside the deepest, most primal part our brains. There are a few possible solutions to this. We could evolve ourselves and change our brains. We could tip the gender population ratio in favor of women, so that men would be more sought after. The easiest way to achieve the latter is by simply giving parents the power to choose their kid's gender. Assuming parents are rational agents, they will choose the most valuable gender for their kid, which will bring the genders into an equilibrium.

pessimizer2• 10 years ago

I wonder why an analysis of comparative rates of male/female self-murder seems to ignore that men murder others (in the U.S.) at around 5 or 6 times the rate of women. The differences seem comparable and very related. I see postulation that men have unique problems, but not any consideration of the fact that men have shown a greater urge to kill in general.

I may have just missed it.

ank_the_elder• 10 years ago

Is that the actual murder rate or the conviction rate? Remember that women are less likely to be convicted than men are.

pessimizer2• 10 years ago

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1635092

I think the way you're using "actual murder rate" here is by definition an unknowable number. Do you have the actual comparable likelihood of the conviction of women and men with the same evidence?

Is there actually any real question that men kill far more than women do?

fatdog• 10 years ago

So the reason men kill themselves is "because, men?" I get that is sufficient for the sort of people for whom, "because, women," or "because, men," is explanatory, but maybe something social changed in the last 40 years?

When you control for hard drugs like the mari-huana, heavy metal music, D&D, violent video games, rap music, marylin manson, the fast and the furious sequels, and toxic masculinity, surely there is something that must shake out.

throwaway9123• 10 years ago

I am a guy. I narrowly avoided suicide around 18. I should first note that I'm doing much better these days.

If there is anything scarier than attempting suicide, it would be the thought of surviving it. Permanent disfigurement, crippling, or chronic pain would only make life all the worse - and a second attempt would be made all the harder by well meaning family, police, and doctors. One thinks to be thorough, or to not try at all.

Scarier than keeping quiet about your demons, is the thought of being forced to confront them. You don't want to talk and dwell on such a depressing subject, when depression is the very thing you're trying to run from. Outward silence mirrors a desperate attempt to achieve inner silence.

Manly ideals such as the ability to shoulder burden, and self reliance, can worsen the problem. Why share such deeply personal problems, if you think others can't help you with them? After all, if even you yourself can't lick the problem - you who surely best knows yourself - what chance do others have? You'll only depress others. You'll only depress yourself further.

I survived the peak of my first depression thanks to a fear of hell. The second, by knowing my ex still cared about me, even if she did not still care to be with me. I couldn't be that selfish.

A decade later, and long walks are for exercise and a break - not an excuse to cross tall bridges. I fight the good fight: I try to exercise. To eat well. To sleeping well and fully. To socialize regularly. To enjoy the sun. To enjoy nature. To eliminate stress. I have a career. I rarely crunch.

Medication would probably help. I'd still like a meaning to life. Maybe Love, again, but love is hard work - and even after all this time, is it prudent to risk a third heartbreak? I'm better now, and take care of myself better, but in doing so I've also learned a healthy amount of selfishness...

It's 7AM, and I should sleep. Back to silence. I will sleep well, and wake refreshed tomorrow. Be kind to and take care of each other, and do the same for yourselves. Make friends instead of enemies, even if that means funny hobbies instead of important politics sometimes. Smile, laugh, and try to share the joys of life. They may not always shine as brightly, but it's easier to find your way towards life if the path is at least lit.

zpharer2• 10 years ago

Good luck on your journey.

If you ever do find yourself on the fence about getting professional help, please try it. You may find yourself pleasantly surprised.

slackstation• 10 years ago

Why do we get mired with the attempts quagmire? If you look at depression and suicidal thoughts as a disease, the death rate is gendered.

Men die more from suicide yet society shows more sympathy and support for women. That makes sense since society was basically built to protect women and ensure that offspring had stable diligent parents. This leads to society enshrining the protections of women and children at the (relative) disadvantage of men.

DanBC3• 10 years ago

Why do we get mired with the attempts quagmire?

Because if women start to use more lethal methods we'll see their rates of death overtake men. We care about attempted suicide, and self harm, because we want to reduce the rates of attempted suicide and of completed suicide.

A silent epidemic of male suicide (2011)

Related Stories