In the United States in 2021, 38,000 men committed suicide. They took their own lives four times more often than women. Paradoxically, more women than men experience depression related to suicide attempts; that’s 37 percent of women and 20 percent of men, respectively – the editorial staff of The Hill portal recalls the data of the Gallup report on Thursday.
Although men are more likely to take their own lives, suicide attempts are more common among women. The main cause of this paradox is firearms. While suicide attempts with firearms account for only 5 percent of all attempted suicides, they account for more than half of successful suicide attempts, and men resort to this method more often than women.
Between 2015 and 2020, more than 122,000 American men took their own lives with firearms, with 2020 and 2021 record-breaking. “The suicide rate in the US is strongly related to access to firearms,” explains Professor Mitch Prinstein of the University of North Carolina. At the same time, according to The Hill, between 2020 and 2022 Americans bought 60 million guns.
The editorial office draws attention to the increasing frequency of suicides among young people: among men aged 15 to 24, it has increased over the last two decades from 16.5 per 100,000. up to 23.8. Among women in the same age group, the proportion has doubled but is still much lower at 6.1 per 100,000. (PAP)
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