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New Help for a Group at Risk for Suicide: Middle-Aged Men

Doctors and psychologists are testing new ways to treat a long-running mental-health crisis: high rates of suicide among middle-aged and older men.

Men overall have a suicide rate between three and four times as high as women, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. One reason is that men tend to choose more lethal means—most often firearms—when they attempt. Men are also less likely than women to seek mental-health help. And men’s anxiety and depression often come across as anger or irritability rather than worry and sadness, so conditions that can raise the risk of suicide can go undiagnosed and untreated.

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