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Fact check: Men accounted for about 80% of US suicides in 2021

If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, you can call the U.S. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 any time day or night, or chat online.

The claim: Men account for 0% of all US suicides

Tens of thousands of men die by suicide every year in the United States, but an altered graphic circulating on social media claims male suicide in the U.S. is nonexistent.

"Male deaths represent 0% of all suicides in the U.S.," reads a Dec. 1 Instagram post (direct link, archived link), which was liked more than 900 times in four days.

The post shows an obviously edited graphic on men's mental health that changes suicide stats to be zero and adds assertions such as, "Men are less likely to get help, often because they don't need it." Other versions of the claim circulated on Instagram as well.

That percentage, of course, is incorrect. In 2021, men accounted for about 80% of all suicides in the U.S., according to preliminary data compiled by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics.

USA TODAY reached out to the social media user who shared the post for comment.

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More than 38,000 men in the US died by suicide in 2021

More than 47,000 people in the U.S. died by suicide in 2021, and the majority of those deaths – 38,025 – were men, the National Center for Health Statistics' recent report shows.

The overall number of suicides increased by 4% in 2021, up from about 46,000 in 2020. That increase follows two years of decline. The number of male suicides also climbed 4% in 2021, up from more than 36,000 in 2020.

The suicide rate for men in the U.S. was about four times as high as it was for women in 2021. There were roughly 23 suicide deaths for every 100,000 men, compared to about six for every 100,000 women.

The suicide rate for men has been going up for decades. It rose by about 26% between 1999 and 2017, according to the CDC. The rate didn't change much between 1999 and 2006, then went up about 2% each year from 2006 to 2017.

The gender disparity in suicide rates isn't unique to the U.S. In 2019, the male suicide rate in the United Kingdom was at its lowest since 1981 – about 15 deaths per 100,000 people. The rate among women in the U.K., though, was about a third of that, about five suicides per 100,000 people, according to the BBC.

While it's difficult to point to a single cause for the rising number of suicides, experts told The Washington Post that factors likely include a recent increase in guns in the home, loss of jobs during the pandemic, deaths of relatives because of COVID-19 and the influence of social media.

Our rating: False

Based on our research, we rate FALSE the claim that men account for 0% of all U.S. suicides. More than 47,000 people in the U.S. died by suicide in 2021, and the majority of those deaths – 38,025 – were men.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: Men accounted for about 80% of US suicides in 2021