Question: ‘What are the causes and solutions for the high number of men taking their own lives?’
Objective: To hear evidence from a range of UK and international experts on the data, causes and solutions for reducing male suicide rates in the UK.
Evidence: Watch the evidence from 8 experts. Glen Poole, Prof. Rob Whitley, Prof Nav Kapur, Sarah Meek, Des Mcvey, Oli Vikse, Jules Morris and Prof. Louis Appleby.
Report No 3: Tackling Male Suicide A New ‘Whole System’ Approach
Read the report here.
Terms of Reference
‘What are the causes and solutions for the high number of men taking their own lives?’
(A) Objective
To hear evidence from a range of UK and international experts on the data, causes and solutions for reducing male suicide rates in the UK.
(B) Background
1. Following on from the APPG’s previous reports “A Boy Today” and “The Case for a Men’s Health Strategy”, the members of the APPG have decided to look more deeply into the issue of male suicide, which featured in our first two reports.
2. More specifically, this Inquiry will explore:
- Data on male suicide including within different male demographics/cohorts;
- The causes of male suicide in the UK, and,
- Recommendations for policies and for reducing the suicide rate.
3. In keeping with the previous two reports, the underlying premise is to take a male positive approach to the inquiry rather than a negative deficit model approach which is predicated on victim blaming/men at fault.
4. The inquiry will only use female suicide rates as context not comparison. The focus is on male suicides.
(C) Core Issues
1. Male suicide continues to be a significant problem in the UK. Over 4,500 men in the UK took their own lives in 2020. With 2019 figures from Northern Ireland (157) , this is the equivalent of 13 per day.
2. Men make up 75% of all death by suicide and it is the biggest cause of male death under 50. Whilst female suicide has halved since 1981, male suicide rates have only reduced by 20%.
3. While the suicide rate (deaths per 100,000) has gone down since 1981, the actual number of men (England and Wales) who have died by suicide has risen due to population growth: from 3,562 in 1981 to 3,925 in 2020. (The peak was 4,303 in 2019.)
4. There are also subsets within the male group.
- Males aged 45 to 49 years had the highest age-specific suicide rate at 24.1 per 100,000 male deaths (457 registered deaths) – 7.1 women (138)
- 124 male full time students died by suicide in 2019 (England and Wales) as did 58 female students. Between 2012-2107 the rates were 5% and 2.1% respectively.
- Men in the building trades are three times more likely to take their own lives than the average UK man, with almost nine tragedies a week
- Rates of suicide for men in prison are three times higher than men not in prison
5 The Government’s approach through a national suicide strategy (alongside approaches from others) focuses on suicide prevention: stopping men going through with their suicide ideation.
There is less research / agreement on preventing suicide ideation in the first place.
This needs to be better understanding of the actual underlying causes of these high rates and demographic differences and to draw policies from that understanding.
6 The House of Commons recent research briefing provides a good outline of recent policies and facts.
(D) Meetings
Three evidence sessions are planned: May 10th, June 14th and July 12th.
Publication: Sept 2022.