Veterans suicide rate: The war at home
By J. Patrick Coolican
Friday, Feb. 24, 2012
We know that suicide is a terrible problem in Nevada, with a rate 50 percent higher than the national average. Among military veterans and especially young veterans, however, it’s a crisis, according to new data from the Nevada Department of Health and Human Services.
From 2008 to 2010, the Nevada veteran suicide rate was 2.5 times higher than the rate for all Nevadans and nearly quadruple the national nonveteran suicide rate.
In 2010, suicide accounted for more than a quarter of deaths among veterans 24 and younger.
All told, of the 1,545 Nevada suicides between 2008-2010, veterans accounted for a stunning 373 of them, or nearly a quarter.
The explanation: The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have taken a brutal toll on our young men and women. And they have come home to a bad economy and communities that are often clueless about what veterans have experienced or how to help them.
“Those high numbers are reflective of a decade of war and the impact that has on those who have been asked to serve in that war,” said Luana Ritch, a veteran and public health expert who compiled the data for the Nevada Department of Health and Human Services.
There’s no great repository of data that tracks veterans’ health, other than the Department of Veterans Affairs. But many veterans aren’t in the VA system. And veterans’ death certificates sometimes neglect to mention military service.
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