Here is some of the research that support our work with men:
A few of the discouraging statistics that particularly affect men: suicides in rural America increased more than 40% in 16 years. Isolation is one of the challenges faced by men living in rural communities.[1] Most new jobs aren’t in rural areas.[2] Poverty is higher in rural areas.[3] And disabilities are more common in rural areas.[4]
Then there are the statistics concerning death. Men in the middle years (defined as ages 35 – 64) make up 40% of the suicides in the United States.[5] Men represent 76% of homicides[6] and 80% of suicides[7].
httpss://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1586156
- Men in the middle years (defined as ages 35 – 64) make up 40% of the suicides in the United States
httpss://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htius.pdf
- Men represent 76% of homicides
httpss://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/suicide/index.html
- 80% of suicides
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[1] httpss://www.acsh.org/news/2017/03/16/suicides-rural-america-increased-more-40-16-years-11010
[2] httpss://usa.ipums.org/usa
[3] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0743016716300225
[4] https://rtc.ruralinstitute.umt.edu
[5] httpss://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1586156
[6] httpss://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htius.pdf
[7] httpss://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/suicide/index.html
https://www.glennsacks.com/distraught_fathers_courthouse.htm
- “… a divorced father is ten times more likely to commit suicide than a divorced mother, and three times more likely to commit suicide than a married father.”
- According to Los Angeles divorce consultant Jayne Major:
- “Men initiate only a small number of the divorces involving children. Most of the men I deal with never saw their divorces coming, and they are often treated very unfairly by the family courts.’”
https://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=48871
- Of the top fifteen leading causes of death, men lead in 12 categories, are tied in two, and trail in one. Even though more women die of heart disease each year, men die of heart disease many years earlier.
httpss://www.mentalhealth.va.gov/docs/2016suicidedatareport.pdf
- 20 veterans a day die from suicide
https://fallenfathers.blogspot.com/2007/03/children-without-fathers-statistics.html
- 63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes (US Dept. Of Health/Census) – 5 times the average.
- 90% of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes – 32 times the average.
- 85% of all children who show behavior disorders come from fatherless homes – 20 times the average. (Center for Disease Control)
- 80% of rapists with anger problems come from fatherless homes –14 times the average. (Justice & Behavior, Vol 14, p. 403-26)
- 71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes – 9 times the average. (National Principals Association Report)
- 75% of all adolescent patients in chemical abuse centers come from fatherless homes – 10 times the average. (Rainbows for All God’s Children)
- 70% of youths in state-operated institutions come from fatherless homes – 9 times the average. (U.S. Dept. of Justice, Sept. 1988)
- 85% of all youths in prison come from fatherless homes – 20 times the average. (Fulton Co. Georgia, Texas Dept. of Correction)
https://www.counselling-directory.org.uk/men-and-mental-health-stats.html
In the U.K.:
- For men under 35, suicide is the biggest cause of death.
- In the last five years the suicide rate in males aged 45-59 has increased significantly to 22.2 deaths per 100,000 population.
- Two important risk factors found were age and socioeconomic status. As we can see in the above statistics, middle-aged men are particularly at risk, with numbers of suicides in males aged 45-59 increasing over the last five years.
- Suicide rate was 10 times higher in men who have a lower socioeconomic status than affluent males.
https://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/iceland-teen-substance-abuse/8208214
In Australia:
- “People can get addicted to drink, cars, money, sex, calories, cocaine – whatever,” says Milkman. “The idea of behavioural addiction became our trademark.”
- This idea spawned another: “Why not orchestrate a social movement around natural highs: around people getting high on their own brain chemistry – because it seems obvious to me that people want to change their consciousness – without the deleterious effects of drugs?”
https://www.businessinsider.com/trade-impact-jobs-trump-campaign-2017-8
- Marrying less frequently and dying sooner — how the downward spiral of manufacturing is hurting American men
- Social isolation raised a person’s risk of death by half compared to obesity, which raised the risk of death by just 30 percent
- US population now experiences isolation regularly.
- Harvard 79-year-old study discovered close relationships are what make men happy, and that social ties shield people from life challenges while improving mental and physical health.
- Social connections are good for us; loneliness kills
- People who are more isolated than they want to be from others find that they are less happy, their health declines earlier in midlife, their brain functioning declines sooner and they live shorter lives than people who are not lonely. And the sad fact is that at any given time, more than one in five Americans will report that they’re lonely.
- Instead of focusing on the quantity, it’s vital to focus on the quality of our friendships.
- When we gathered together everything we knew about them at age 50, it wasn’t their middle-age cholesterol levels that predicted how they were going to grow old, it was how satisfied they were in their relationships. The people who were the most satisfied in their relationships at age 50 were the healthiest at age 80.
https://wonder.cdc.gov/mcd-icd10.html
- Fatal opioid overdose in rural areas have increased at nprecedented rates from 2012-2014
- Drug related deaths are 45% higher in rural areas.
- Men in rural areas are using more opioids than women in rural areas, but more women are dying from opioid overdose.
https://www.businessinsider.com/america-incarceration-rates-2017-11
- Current and former prisoners accounted for 5.8% of adult US men in 2010, up from 1.8% in 1980, according to data from Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
httpss://mcc.gse.harvard.edu/files/gse-mcc/files/mcc_the_talk_final.pdf
- 9 in 10 young women have been sexually harassed
- 87 percent of women between 18 and 25 had also experienced sexual harassment at some point in their lives
- Society are failing to prepare young people for perhaps the most important thing they will do in life—learn how to love and develop caring, healthy romantic relationships. Second, most adults appear to be doing shockingly little to prevent or effectively address pervasive misogyny and sexual harassment among teens and young adults
- 70 percent of the young adults said they wished they’d had more education from older adults to address their anxiety concerning love and relationships.
httpss://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3227029/
- sexual harassment at work and early on in a woman’s career can cause long term depression
- 56 percent of men do not believe women still encounter significant barriers when it comes to “getting ahead”– men are unaware about what women endure
- opioid Crisis Reached $95 Billion in 2016
httpss://www.menshealth.com/health/american-opioid-crisis
- Drug overdoses are the number one killer of American under age 50. Nearly two out of three victims are men.
- Drug overdose fatalities in the U S. in 2016 = 64,000 vs. total U.S. causualities in Vietnam conflict: 1954-1975 = 58,220
- Total U.S. overdose deaths in 2015, 32,957 were men
- Total U.S. opiod-related death in 2015, 21,671 were men
- “Unfortunately, the U.S. treatment system has focus on a single way to generate social support: 12-step programs like Alcoholics or Nacotics Anonymous, where people meet to confess their ‘character defects’ and turn their lives over to a Higher Power…. Having social support helps fill sthe space with healthy alternatives.”
- Chronic inflammation is “one of the major fertilizers” for many of the illnesses associated with loneliness, including heart disease, cancer and neurodegenerative disorders, says Dr. Steve Cole, a genomics researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles.
- Lonelier people feel worse when they are sick than less lonely people
- The health consequences of loneliness have become the focus of widespread public dialogue in recent years, as media such as The New York Times, Forbes and the BBC warn of a loneliness “epidemic.” Britain’s government appointed a new “minister for loneliness.”
- A wealth of research shows that a sense of being cared for and loved is crucial to our well-being
- When faced with a fight-or-flight experience, the immune system temporarily redirects its resources away from fighting viruses to brace for a bacterial infection, Cole says. And it appears loneliness triggers the same response. Rather than being in the default anti-viral stance, the immune systems of lonely people appeared to be tipped in favour of producing inflammation.