10/09/2004

Pilot schemes set to focus on male suicide rates

The National Institute for Mental Health in England (NIMHE) has announced that it will be developing a number of mental health promotion pilots to try to encourage young men at greater suicide risk to seek help earlier.

The institute said that the pilots, centred in Camden, Manchester and Bedfordshire, would go a long way to tackling the issue of suicide among young men in Britain.

As suicide accounts for the deaths of 1,300 young men between the ages of 19 and 35 in England every year, the pilots are a "vital element" in the strategy to reduce the risk, according to the institute.

Those with mental health problems are known to be the most vulnerable and statistics show that one-in-four of suicides occur in people who are in contact with specialist mental health services in the year before their death.

Although suicide rates have been falling since the early 1980s and continue to do so, the fact that suicide is the most common form of death in men under 35 years of age indicates the extent of the problem.

Professor Louis Appleby, National Director for Mental Health, said: "Suicide is a major cause of preventable death in England and elsewhere. At a personal level, suicide is a terrible and needless tragedy. Each suicide represents both an individual tragedy and a loss to society."

The pilots will be implemented at the beginning of October.

(mmcg/gmcg)

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