Men, suicide, and COVID-19: Critical masculinity analyses and interventions.

Suicide is a global public health burden, causing around 800,000 deaths annually along with many more attempts (World Health Organization 2019). Since Émile Durkheim’s classic study Le Suicide (Durkheim 1951), it has been repeatedly confirmed that suicide rates spike up during and after crises (Chang, Stuckler, Yip, and Gunnell 2013; Iemmi et al. 2016; Gunnell et al. 2020). Recent research reports indicate that various socioeconomic, psychological, and health-related impacts of the Covid19 pandemic may heighten the risk of suicidal behaviors (Reger, Stanley, and Joiner 2020; Gunnell et al. 2020). Uncertainties caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, coupled with global responses such as lockdowns, have heightened depression, anxiety, isolation, loneliness, financial concerns, anger, irritability, relationship conflicts, post-traumatic stress disorder, fears, and increased use of alcohol and tobacco (Tull et al. 2020; Courtet, Olié, Debien, and Vaiva 2020). Factors like these intensify risk from suicidal behaviors in people who are traditionally considered as vulnerable and in people who were not considered at risk prior to the pandemic (Suicide Awareness Voices of Education 2020; Courtet et al. 2020).