To explain this: in many places women attempt suicide at high rates. If women start using a more lethal method the rate of death will increase to be similar to

To explain this: in many places women attempt suicide at high rates. If women start using a more lethal method the rate of death will increase to be similar to men. There are some factors that we think are protective that we use to help explain the difference in rates of death between men and women (more likely to be part of a family, more likely to ask for help, more likely to have contact with health care, less likely to use a more dangerous method, etc etc) and if these factors are changing for women we need to understand what's going on because understanding will also help us protect men. All suicide prevention focuses on middle aged men because that's the highest risk group, but they don't ignore other groups.