Veteran suicide is a controversial topic that has come under increased scrutiny as we as a society have come to better understand issues like post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), psychological trauma, and depression. Especially since the undesirable ending of the Vietnam War and the regrettable treatment the returning service members too often endured, America as a nation has had to look more closely at the way we treat our troops, even after their terms of service are technically completed.
The latest report on the subject of suicide rates within the national Veteran population was released February 1 from the Department of Veterans Affairs, which called it “the most comprehensive study of Veteran suicide rates ever undertaken by the department.”
According to the study, an estimated twenty-two veterans died from suicide every day in the year 2010, indicating that the percentage of veterans who die by suicide has in fact decreased since the previous report, however the total number of veterans who have died by suicide has actually increased overall.
It’s a bittersweet victory for VA, which had recently completed a mandatory hiring spree, in accordance with the President’s Aug. 31, 2012, Executive Order, which mandated a larger staff trained to support and increase the capacity of the Veterans Crisis Line by fifty percent. The program boasts an impressive success rate, and has made approximately 26,000 rescues of “actively suicidal” veterans, according to the official VA press release which accompanied the publication of the report.
Also, having come under fire for being slow to respond to the issue and unable, until very recently, to even say at all how many veterans kill themselves with any degree of accuracy, VA has certainly appeared to have increased their capacity to understand and treat the issue of Veteran suicide. Some, however, remain skeptical.
“If the VA wants to get its arms around this problem, why does it have such a small number of people working on it?” retired Col. Elspeth Cameron Ritchie, a former Army psychiatrist, was quoted as asking in a recent article in The Washington Post. “It’s a start, but it is a faint start. It is not enough.”
VA Secretary Erik K. Shinseki has said that his agency would only continue to intensify their suicide prevention efforts in the future. “The mental health and well-being of our courageous men and women who have served the nation is the highest priority for VA, and even one suicide is too many.”
The VA study has been criticized for using data compiled from only 21 states (not including Texas and California, both which include large military populations) and then using those numbers on which to base the national figures. According to the study: “Of the 147,763 suicides reported in 21 states, 27,062 (18.3 percent) were identified as having history of U.S. military service on death certificates.
However, veteran status was unknown or not reported for more than 23 percent of all suicides during the project period. Without linking to VA or Department of Defense resources to validate history of U.S. military service, it is necessary to remove those without information on history of military service from estimates of veteran status among suicide decedents. Among cases where history of U.S. military service was reported, veterans comprised approximately 22.2 percent of all suicides reported during the project period.”
The recent data also shows that almost two-thirds of veterans who commit suicide are over the age of 50, a surprising discovery, indicating that service members recently returning from conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan are not the reason for the increase, as was once speculated.
Specifically, men in their fifties, a comparatively large percentage of the overall veteran population, prove to be a confusing statistic. The suicide rate for veterans is approximately three times the total national rate, but the percentage of men in their fifties who commit suicide is the same for both Veterans and civilians in that age group. Indicating perhaps that the increase only appears to be affecting Veterans specifically more than it actually is.
“There is a perception that we have a veterans’ suicide epidemic on our hands. I don’t think that is true,” said Robert Bossarte, one of the epidemiologists assigned by the VA to the study. “The rate is going up in the country, and veterans are a part of it.”
Indeed the VA study indicates that the total number of suicides in the country has increased by almost 11 percent from 2007 to 2010. According to separate statistics published by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in 2012, suicide was the tenth leading cause of death for Americans of all ages in 2010 and there were 38,364 successful suicides that year (an average of 105 a day).
Furthermore, suicide among males is four times higher than among females and represented 79 percent of all U.S. suicides at the time. However, females were ironically “more likely” than males to have had suicidal thoughts. Perhaps most disturbingly, the CDC found that suicide is the third leading cause of death among persons aged 15-24 years and accounts for 20 percent of all deaths in this age group annually.
“Depression and suicide are complicated, and often misunderstood, emotional and behavioral experiences that touch many American lives,” said Dr. Joel Mitchell, Director of the Outpatient Mental Health Service at the American Lake Division of the VA Puget Sound Health Care System. “While everyone has times they feel ‘down’ or ‘blue,’ clinical depression is a mental health condition that falls outside of what we would consider to be an expected reaction to an event or series of events.”
Suicide among veterans remains a critical social issue that demands more study to truly understand, and greater training and preparedness to adequately treat. Although true answers are difficult to come by, and we may never truly understand the psychological triggers that cause so many people to decide to end their own lives, today the topic of veteran suicide is finally receiving the care and attention it deserves. Through continual study and treatment, like the newly released VA survey and improved National Crisis Line, our national veteran community is being better cared for now than ever before.