You asked
I am asking for the number of male suicides over the last 10 years who had gynecomastia and on what side of their body. I would also like to know the age of the deceased and the method of suicide, if possible, please.
We said
Thank you for your enquiry.
The number of suicides for England and Wales for 1981 to 2019 are available here: Suicides in England and Wales: 2019 registrations. This publication will be updated to include 2020 data in September 2021; when a publication date is finalised it will be announced via our release calendar.
Suspected suicide deaths are investigated by a coroner in what's known as an inquest. The amount of time it takes to hold an inquest causes a delay between the date of death and the date of death registration, referred to as a registration delay. Registration delays for deaths caused by suicide tend to be 5 to 6 months on average. More information about the impact of registration delays is available here.
We also produce provisional suicide data for England on a quarterly basis, with the most recent update including deaths that were registered from October to December of 2020. This publication presented numbers of deaths registered in 2020 with the median registration delay in Quarter 4 2020 being 177 days.
Proportion of suicide deaths by method and sex for England and Wales, 2001 to 2019 registrations, are available in Table 14 of our annual publication: Suicides in England and Wales: 2019 registrations. A breakdown of method and age combined is not available due to the potential disclosure risk, however suicide by age are included in the report.
Gynecomastia would only be mentioned alongside an underlying cause of suicide if it was a contributory factor in the death. It would not be possible to identify further detail, such as what side of the body gynecomastia occurred, because this level of detail is not recorded on the death certificate. Numbers of deaths where suicide was the underlying cause and gynecomastia was mentioned either as a contributory cause of death are not readily available. It might be possible for us to produce this as a bespoke extract. Bespoke analysis requires a high level of statistical skill and judgement and is subject to legal frameworks, disclosure control, resources and agreements of costs. Such enquiries fall outside of the Freedom of Information regime and should be made to: Health.Data@ons.gov.uk.