Rate of suicide in the U.S. peaks among older men, a hard demographic to reach

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The hardest group for Dennis Gillan to get to talk about suicide is older men. They also happen to have the highest rate of suicide in the United States.

Gillan, 60, is from Greenville, South Carolina, and he has been a front-row observer to the crisis. He's a self-trained suicide expert who speaks on college campuses and at corporate training offices about mental health awareness. He draws on his personal experience after the deaths, about a decade apart, of his brothers Mark and Matthew by suicide. Both men were in their early 20s.

Of all the groups he has worked with, older men are among the trickiest demographic to reach. Getting them in the room and speaking candidly has been one of the toughest challenges.

“As men, we’re supposed to have all the answers,” he told USA TODAY. "We’re really not good at saying, ‘I don’t have a clue what happens in life.”