America's military suicide rate explained by BBC, almost

America's military suicide rate explained
BBC USA and Canada
11 November 2013

As America observes Veterans Days the country once again recognises generations of military service in war and peacetime.

But among those active-duty troops serving today the heartbreaking trend of military suicides continues to shock the nation.

Answers to why this occurs remain elusive, yet data collected in recent years may provide some clues.

The BBC takes a look at some of the most striking statistics - including a few that dispel conventional wisdom about what's behind these acts.
Produced by David Botti

They forgot the National Guards and Reservists too. 140 of them. It sounds like they are just repeating what the DOD said in one study that was trumped by another report from STARRS

The five-year study was undertaken in 2009, in response to the rising rate of military suicides. It's the largest study ever attempted on mental health risk and resilience among service members, and it involves an expansive partnership between the Army, the National Institute of Mental Health and several universities.

The coalition of researchers found a statistically significant rise in suicides following initial deployments. This finding contrasts sharply with a study featured in the Journal of the American Medical Association's Aug. 7 edition. Led by personnel at the Naval Health Research Center in San Diego, that study found no association between deployments and increased suicide risk.

That's just not the case for the Army, as depicted by Army STARRS data, said Dr. Michael Schoenbaum, collaborating scientist at NIMH.

"Soldiers who have deployed at least once do have an elevated suicide rate compared with Soldiers who never deployed," Schoenbaum said.

The AMA Journal article was based on analysis of data from the DOD Millennium Cohort Study that sampled all service members, Schoenbaum said, surmising at least half of the participants were Sailors and Airmen. In contrast, Army STARRS examines only Soldiers.

"There are a lot of reasons to expect that the experience during deployment of Air Force and Navy personnel is really substantially different from Army and Marine [personnel]," Schoenbaum said.