Study: Suicide rates are higher among older men

According to a recent study, suicide rates around the world are higher among older adults, especially men, than all other age groups combined.

Using data from the World Health Organization Mortality Database, the study analyzed 687,443 suicide deaths among adults age 65 and older from 47 countries and territories. It tracked from 1996 to 2021, nearly 3.5 million suicide deaths in the total population.

Researchers found suicide deaths were significantly higher among adults age 65 and older than among individuals of all age groups — 15.99 per 100,000 individuals vs. 10.87 per 100,000. Suicide rates were much higher among older men than older women, 29.24 vs. 6.47 per 100,000.

The study was first co-authored by Hanseul Cho, who earned a master of public health in quantitative methods from Harvard University’s Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston.

Co-author is Alexander Tsai, MD, Ph.D., associate professor at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s department of epidemiology. Other co-authors come from universities in South Korea, France, Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Italy.

The group discovered that suicide deaths declined between 1996 and 2021, from 23.34 per 100,000 individuals to 15.99 per 100,000, with a larger decline among women than among men.

The researchers determined which suicide methods were used. In the older population, the most common method was hanging. Also, older adults, more commonly men, used firearms more frequently in suicides compared with the total population — and projected future suicide rates through 2050.

The issue of suicide among older people will grow more pressing as the global population ages, the authors noted. They wrote that their findings “underscore the need for rigorous monitoring and targeted strategies for vulnerable subgroups, such as older men and those in the most advanced age groups.”

The study includes factors associated with suicide rates including poverty rates, alcohol use disorders, mental disorders, firearm ownership, and use of pesticides in croplands. The researchers projected the rate of decline would slow by 2050.

“The overall declining trend in suicide mortality among older-age adults, both men and women, worldwide was not necessarily surprising as a similar finding has been observed in previously published studies,” Tsai said. “The pattern is different from what we observe in the U.S., where suicide mortality rates have been increasing — faster among men than women — and where the steepest increases have been among younger age groups.”

Tsai has been affiliated with the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health since July of 2022, when he began teaching psychiatric epidemiology at the school, a course Cho took. His primary academic affiliation is at Harvard Medical School, where Tsai is an associate professor of psychiatry, and he is part of the Massachusetts General Hospital department of psychiatry.

He shared three key takeaways from the study:

1. Suicide mortality rates are declining, but the rate of decline is slowing–particularly among the oldest men.
2. The total number of suicides is increasing, mainly because of population growth and population aging.
3. The observed differences in method-specific suicide mortality rates clearly point to potential intervention targets.

“The fact that we observed the slowest declines among the oldest men and an essentially flat trend in suicides by firearm, points to key populations that need to be targeted for suicide prevention programs and legislation worldwide,” he said.