This report seeks to explain why men of low socio-economic position in their mid-years are
excessively vulnerable to death by suicide and provides recommendations to reduce these
unnecessary deaths.
The report goes beyond the existing body of suicide research and the statistics, to try and
understand life for this group of men, and why they may come to feel without purpose,
meaning or value.
The key message from the report is that suicide needs to be addressed as a health and gender
inequality – an avoidable difference in health and length of life that results from being poor and
disadvantaged; and an issue that affects men more because of the way society expects them to
behave. It is time to extend suicide prevention beyond its focus on individual mental health
problems, to understand the social and cultural context which contributes to people feeling
they wish to die.