An overlooked demographic has the highest suicide risk — and it’s been rising

STAT News – Thursday, July 17, 2025
By Olivia Goldhill

After a decade-long rise in suicide rates among young Americans — and with depression diagnoses soaring in this age group during the pandemic — the U.S. surgeon general issued a report in 2021 warning about the “devastating” state of youth mental health. The American Psychological Association declared it a “crisis.” It was part of a prolonged advocacy campaign to raise awareness about the problem and possible solutions, and finally, in 2022 and 2023, there were signs of success: Suicide rates for teens and young adults began to fall.

Meanwhile, another demographic has gone largely overlooked. The people most at risk from suicide aren’t those in crisis in adolescence or midlife, but men age 75 and older. Some 38.2 deaths per 100,000 among men age 75 to 84 are by suicide, which increases to 55.7 among those over 85, according to data from CDC — more than 16 times the suicide rate for women in the same age group. Researchers are calling for a public health effort, much like the one to treat youth mental health, to help address suicide in older men.

Many attribute the recent declines in youth suicides to all the attention paid to the issue, and the ample resources devoted to it, said Mark Salzer, professor of social and behavioral sciences at Temple University. “The same intensive efforts have not been made for older adults where there is a belief among some that depression is a natural part of aging,” he told STAT. “It is not.”

Suicide rates have risen steadily for two decades among men 55 and older, and researchers are struggling with the question of why, and how to intervene. “There’s not just one answer,” said Jeffrey Swanson, medical sociologist and professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke University School of Medicine. “A cocktail of factors come together.”

Chief among them is men’s tool of choice for attempting suicide. Older men are dramatically more likely than older women to die of gun suicides: The rate was 17 times higher for men 75-84, and a staggering 51 times higher for men 85 and older in 2021.

Most suicide attempts are not fatal, but that’s not the case with guns, said Rosie Bauder, professor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral health at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. Firearms are lethal 95 times out of 100. “It doesn’t offer many opportunities to change one’s mind,” she said.

That lethality goes a long way toward explaining why many more older men die by suicide despite the fact that men and women over 50 attempt suicide at similar rates, according to 2022 and 2023 data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health.

Other reasons for the high rates of suicide among older men are social stressors like retirement, divorce, and financial instability, combined with particularly masculine traits that make these factors harder for them to adapt to.

Yeates Conwell, psychiatry professor at University of Rochester Medical Center, points to the five D’s: depression, disease, disability, disconnection, and deadly means. Although disease and disability affect both men and women, he said it can be harder for men to cope.

“Because the male identity is so wrapped up in the ability to care for oneself, that transition to being a care receiver and needing more help from other people can be difficult,” he said.

Similarly, women are better at creating support networks. “In retirement men have lost many of the connections they may have had, and many sources of self-esteem in life,” said Conwell. “Older women aren’t just better at creating social support but are more likely to acknowledge depressive symptoms and reach out for health care. Men hide that stuff better.”

The primary reason for suicide is loneliness, according to Igor Galynker, psychiatry professor at the Suicide Prevention Research Lab at Mount Sinai: “Men spend their life achieving and neglect social connections. Women retire a lot better, it’s less traumatic for them. Men are so invested in their work they lose both social connections from work and the meaning of life.”

A man might develop a disease that makes him disabled, then have to retire because he can no longer drive, then he becomes depressed and isolated, and has access to a firearm. “Each independently has some risk, but it’s the interactions between them, the burden of risk factors that come together over time that puts the person at greatest risk,” said Conwell.

There are further risks of isolation from divorce or being widowed. And rates are higher for those living in rural areas and without any siblings. “Older men who are living alone, their adult children might not be close, they might have friends who’ve already passed away, older men who are estranged from their children and aren’t engaged in meaningful activities, they’re the ones at greater risk from suicidality,” said Temple’s Salzer.

Although many of these risk factors also affect women, men are socialized to deal with them less well. “Men in the U.S. grow up with the idea they have to be independent, they need to be an economically successful provider, they need to have a stiff upper lip and not express emotions so much,” said Daniel Coleman, a professor in social work at Fordham University.

That socialization can also push them to suicide far quicker than women. While women have higher rates of depressive symptoms, said Duke’s Swanson, men have a greater capacity to inflict harm on themselves, from being taught to withstand pain and not show fear. “Men learn to suppress those feelings earlier,” said Coleman.

Social circumstances are not an adequate explanation, according to Silvia Canetto, a psychology professor at Colorado State University. “The answers usually given are about the adversities of aging,” she said, such as physical illness and loss and widowhood. “These indignities of aging happen to everyone crossing into older adults, but suicide is not equally common.” It is particularly high, she said, among men of European descent.

Among these men, research has found that those who die by suicide don’t have particularly severe social or health challenges, but do have traditionally masculine traits such as a narrow sense of self, constricted range of interests, being closed off to feelings, and less willingness to articulate vulnerability.

There’s also research suggesting that men who do some care work are less vulnerable to suicide. “The combination of the two [paid work and care work] is probably best for greater well-being,” said Canetto.

Preventing suicides among older men

Several researchers pointed to one single factor that could have the greatest impact on suicide rates: restricting access to guns. Survey data suggest millions of people think of suicide, a much smaller number have a plan, even smaller numbers attempt it, and there’s then a huge decline to the number of people who die. “Means matters a whole lot,” said Swanson.

Intervening with “extreme risk protection order laws” (ERPOs), which in 21 states and the District of Columbia give law enforcement the authority to remove a firearm from someone at high risk of hurting themselves, is one of the most effective means of suicide prevention, said Swanson. His research estimates that one life is saved for every 17 to 23 ERPOs.

“In a state with an ERPO law, you can have grandad’s guns taken away and it might save his life,” Swanson said. “If we want to stop so many people who are dying, we should focus on the means, especially given the role of firearms. It’s so easy to use, and people don’t get a second chance, and that’s especially so in men.”

Others also emphasized therapeutic preventive measures. Men should be taught how to have the scaffolding of a social community in retirement, and do activities with other men rather than leaving it to women to organize their days, said Galynker. Salzer said talking to older men about depression and how they’re feeling can help, as can visiting them in person, having weekly interactions, and helping them pursue activities that are meaningful to them. Canetto called for both therapy to change unconscious beliefs and a public health campaign to encourage men to show more vulnerability and offer advice of where to go to seek help.

In Australia, said Coleman, there have been campaigns targeting men that reframe seeking therapy as a sign of strength to ask for help. TV advertisements feature a “man’s man” with hunted animal heads on the wall, for example, said Paul Nestadt, psychiatry professor at Johns Hopkins Schools of Medicine and Public Health, and use humor to reach their audience.

“It’s about finding a message that resonates, that’s a little more masculine. Men respond to that, especially in older populations,” he said. “Public health education campaigns are so important. That represents an opportunity to prevent a suicide attempt from being fatal, and save a life.”

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