LONDON (AFP) -- England's suicide rate is the lowest since records began with fewer young men, prisoners and mental health patients taking their own lives, the Department of Health said Thursday.

From the start of 2002 to the end of 2004, the suicide rate was 8.56 deaths per 100,000 people, down from 9.2 deaths per 100,000 between 1995 and 1997, according to the National Suicide Prevention Strategy report.

Health officials said they aimed to reduce the ratio by at least 20 percent from the 1995-97 figures to 7.3 deaths per 100,000 between 2009-2011.

Records began in 1911, a Department of Health spokeswoman told AFP.

Health minister Rosie Winterton said suicide was a major cause of preventable death in England as well as being a needless tragedy.

"The sustained decline in the suicide rate for men is welcome. This shows that our suicide prevention strategy is having a real impact on the vulnerable people who most need help," Winterton said in a statement.

The report, produced by the Department of Health and the National Institute for Mental Health in England, attributed the fall in suicides in young men to new mental health promotion schemes specifically targeting the group.

Other helpful measures included wider research into self-harm, allowing earlier intervention and the phased withdrawal of the commonly-prescribed painkiller co-praxamol, it added.

Government medicines advisors have expressed concern about the number of accidental and intentional overdoses of the prescription-only drug.

The national director for mental health Louis Appleby said mental health in-patient suicides had fallen because of better risk management, the removal of ligature points for hangings and improved care for people who self-harm.