Suicides by military veterans

“Every day, approximately 22 American veterans commit suicide totaling over 8,000 veteran suicides each year.”  Senator John McCain statement on the floor of the U.S. Senate 3 February 2015 on the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act.”

Contemplating 8,000 veterans committing suicide per year is shocking, unfathomable, and disturbing.  The oft repeated number of 22 suicides per day comes from a chart titled “Estimated Number of Veteran Suicides per day by Year” for 2010 in the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) “Suicide Data Report, 2012” that was based on an “overview of data obtained from the State Mortality Project, Suicide Behavior Reports for Fiscal Years 2009-2012, and Veterans Crisis line.”  As shocking, unfathomable, and disturbing as the numbers present themselves on the surface, the number of suicides by military veterans may be even greater.

As Alan Zarembo wrote in the Los Angeles Times on 14 January 2015, caution should be used when considering the report, because the data was based on a sample of only 21 states; data is absent from states with significant veteran populations (California, Georgia, Arizona, and North Carolina); and on many death certificates, veteran status was not indicated, as displayed in a chart titled “Percentage of Suicides Identified as Veteran on Death Certificate.”  Adding to Zarembo’s cautions, it should be noted the report relied heavily upon those veterans utilizing the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) and not other services.

Looking at veterans in California, on 20 March 2013 Rebecca Blanton of the California Research Bureau testified before a Joint Hearing of the Assembly Committee on Veterans Affairs and Assembly Committee on Housing and Community Development that California had approximately 1.9 million veterans, the largest veterans population of any state, with 1 million being over the age of 60.  As of 2012, Blanton testified to the following veteran populations in southern California counties: Los Angeles – 323,431; San Diego – 222,348; and Orange – 132,529, totaling more than 678,000 veterans. Interestingly, the above VA report has as one main finding that “more than 69% of Veteran suicides are among those age 50 years and older.”  Contrasted with this number are the figures from the January 2014 briefing by Janet Kemp of the Veterans Health Administration titled “Suicide Rates in VHA Patients through 2011 with Comparisons with Other Americans and Other Veterans Through 2010,” which indicated the following increases in suicide rates per 100,000 by age group over the period 2009-2011: ages 18-29 increased from 40.3 to 57.9; ages 18-24 increased from 46.1 to 79.1; and ages 25-29 increased from 37 to 48.3 per 100,000.

 

Whatever the numbers from the 2012 VA report, it was prepared absent California data.  If San Diego County was home to over 222,000 veterans in 2012 that were not included in the VA report, it may be reasonable to assume the local veteran population is actually higher now, based on the reduction in the active duty force resulting in many sailors and Marines remaining in the local area after being discharged.  Therefore, with the concentration of military veterans in our region, a population not included in the VA report, the local problem of suicides by those who have served our country may be even greater than that addressed by Senator McCain and others.  

Shocking, unfathomable, and disturbing.