From TREA (The Retired Enlisted Association):
A new report released by the Department of Veterans’ Affairs has revealed that young veterans are committing suicide at a rate that is nearly three times the rate that active duty Army troops have been committing suicide in recent years.
The report studied veterans who had recently transitioned out of the service who were also receiving health care from the VA.
According to USA TODAY, VA officials said the data show that severe personal issues driving self-destructive tendencies for those in uniform follow them when they leave the military. Veterans aged 18-24 who were enrolled in the VA’s healthcare program killed themselves at a rate of 46 per 100,000 in 2009 and nearly 80 per 100,000 in 2011, the latest year of data available, according to the figures.
Non-veterans of the same age had a suicide rate of about 20 per 100,000 during 2009 and 2010, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Thirty-six young veterans receiving some form of VA health care committed suicide in 2009 and 65 died by their own hand two years later. Among those aged 18-29, the suicide numbers rose from 88 in 2009 to 152 in 2011.
The overall suicide rate for active-duty personnel in the Army hovered at 22 per 100,000 during 2009-11, according to military figures.
The number of soldier suicides peaked at 185 in 2012 and a record rate for the Army that year of 30 per 100,000.
A VA official told USA Today that most of them were not receiving mental health therapy but had been treated for other health issues by the VA.
According to VA epidemiologist Robert Bossarte, a similar pattern was found among veterans in the past. “There were several studies after Vietnam that showed increases in suicide and other forms of injury/mortality for about the first five years following return from service,” Bossarte said. “Those rates (eventually) came down to be about the same as the rest of the population.”
Suicide rates for male veterans of all ages who are treated for mental health problems by the VA have fallen steadily from 2001-2011. However, female veteran suicide rates have not improved and remain higher than women who are not veterans, according to the VA data.
Online chat connections with veterans through the VA’s suicide prevention office (hotline number is 1-800-273-8255 or go to http://www.veteranscrisisline.net) have increased from several hundred in 2009 to nearly 55,000 last year, VA data show.
