Medill News Service

Studies of the link between race and health problems such as diabetes and Tay-Sachs disease are prevalent. Yet few studies address high suicide rates and white men.

The Suicide Prevention Resource Center, based in Massachusetts, provides materials and case studies to suicide prevention hot lines and mental health facilities. Though the center provides guides on its Web site outlying suicide within minority groups, it ignores white males.

Suicide rates are higher among men, even though women attempt suicide twice as much as men, because men use more lethal means, said Katherine Wootten, prevention specialist for the Suicide Prevention Resource Center. Men also are less likely to seek help if and when they recognize they have a problem, she said.

"There's a general stigma around mental illness and an added layer of being a man," Wootten said. "It's less acceptable to seek help because of social norms."

Although there's a lack of reliable medical research, one theory about social and economic change leading to suicide might apply, said Dr. Carl C. Bell, a professor of psychiatry and public health at the University of Chicago. This type of suicide happens when people do not fit into roles others expect them to fulfill, he said, noting the increase of suicide in men older than 55.

"When people age, they lose their spot, if they were once at the top of their game," he said.

Experts also explain higher suicide rates among white men by illustrating factors that keep suicides rates low in minority communities.

"If you speak to African-Americans about suicide, they will tell you it's a sign of weakness, not assertiveness," said Dr. David Shaffer, professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at Columbia University. "It's seen as shameful.

"There's lots of weight given in white liberal cultures to free choice. African-Americans tend to be more conservative in beliefs."

Vernellia Randall, a professor at the Institute on Race, Health Care and the Law at the University of Dayton School of Law, said that while African-Americans have lower suicide rates, they have higher homicide rates.

"Consider homicide and suicide together. When some people encounter stress they can no longer handle, they turn to violence," she said. "Some people turn the violence on themselves and we call that suicide. Some people turn the violence against other people and we call that homicide.

"It's about a cultural norm. In the black community, it is not that turning violence outward is acceptable, it's that turning it inward is more unacceptable."