They are probably worse. AM users were predominantly male, which I believe increases the likelihood of suicide.

We tell little boys that "Big boys don't cry". Then wonder why so many men in their 20s kill themselves instead of seeking professional help. :(

Help seeking is definitely part of the problem. UK charity "The Campaign Against Living Miserably"[1] and Australian charity(?) "Soften The Fck Up" both campaign to make it easier for men to talk about mental health and to seek help. UK charity "Time to Change" has a number of campaigns to destigmatise mental health, some of which are targeted at men.

But in the UK there has been a rise in rate of suicide amoung people already known to MH services, so we need to be a bit careful not to put all the "blame" on help seeking behaviours.

(I'm interested in other anti-stigma organisations, where ever they're based and whatever demographic they target.)

[1] Calmzone is currently banned from Facebook. I don't know why. https://www.thecalmzone.net/

http://softenthefckup.com.au/ -- they don't censor the word on the website.

http://www.time-to-change.org.uk/

There is a huge stigma around seeking professional help. It can and does cost people there job and sometimes career.

Not to mention it tends to be rather expensive and of limited value.

I think it has more to do with the method than the act. Men are more likely to have guns, which work very well. Women are less likely to have access to guns and so survive more suicide attempts (pills, jumping off things etc).

Same for the military. The 'success rate' for military suicides is higher partially because of ready access to the means.

Which does nothing to explain the similar ratio in say England where access to guns is very restricted.

"Jumping off things" would be "falls and fracture", and it's not a common method for completed suicide. About 4% of registered deaths are "jumping off things". Drowning is a bit more, about 4%. Poisoning is about 20% and hanging, strangulation and suffocation is about 56%. (The rest has the unhelpful title of "other". I'm not sure what that means.)

> Which does nothing to explain the similar ratio in say England where access to guns is very restricted.

Drive a car fast. Just a lethal. Sometimes you hear about car accidents with only one car involved and the young male driver was the only fatality. Sometimes it's an accident. Sometimes it's someone ending it all.

Yes, the suicide rate for men in the US is over 20 per 100,000, while for women it's about 5.5.

Is that due to the much higher success(?) rate among males vs females? What are the "attempts" per 100,000?

Statistically, females are more likely to self-harm in non-lethal ways. This acts as suicide prevention, in a way, since it triggers responses from the environment and reduces the likelihood of worst outcomes.

Males don't self-harm and overall don't signal their discomfort until it's too late.

According to this web site (accuracy unknown), women attempt suicide at a rate 3x that of men:

http://www.suicide.org/suicide-statistics.html

This PDF says that there are 25 attempts for every suicide:

http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/pdf/Suicide_DataSheet-...

I had no idea it was that high!

In England (or maybe the UK) the rate of death by suicide for men is 17.2 per 100,000 population. For women it's 4.6 per 100,000 population.

(This is from office for national statistics data)