Suicide Study Shows No Link to Rest of Reports

I am a researcher by nature as well as profession. Understand something. A researcher will find only what they are looking for and only see as much as they want to find. Simple as that.

When a headline screams,

Study Finds No Link Between Military Suicide Rate and Deployments

.....some folks won't even read the rest of the article. After all, they just found out all they wanted to know. They'd miss the second paragraph,

The findings are the latest in a series of studies prompted by a military suicide rate that has nearly doubled since 2005. The study’s authors and other researchers cautioned, however, that the findings do not rule out combat exposure as a reason for the increase in suicides, adding that more information was needed.

.....and then miss this part as well.

The suicide rate for troops deployed in support of the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, the study found, was only slightly higher than for troops who did not deploy to that area or remained stateside — 18.86 deaths versus 17.78 deaths per 100,000. The national average is about 13 deaths per 100,000.

They wouldn't know that suicides went up after "prevention efforts" were pushed across all branches and repeated even though the evidence showed more harm than good coming out of all of it. Yet again, some researchers didn't see it.

They didn't want to look at what tied everything all in together.

When we have state after state declaring the rate of veteran suicides were double the civilian population with Iraq and Afghanistan veterans triple their own peer rate, that says something right there especially when there are now more things being done to "prevent" them from happening.

Oh, almost forgot to mention that even as suicides went up, the attempted suicides also went up within the military and in the veterans community.

Army STARRS study busting myths on suicide from 2013

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.

COMBAT MOSs HIGHER RISK

Troops in combat jobs have a higher propensity to commit suicide, the Army study found, and that may help explain some differences in conclusions.

"We've identified some MOS (military occupational specialty) categories that are associated with elevated suicide risk," Schoenbaum said. Those military occupational specialties include artillery and infantry.

Willingness to take risks might be a factor in Soldiers choosing a combat MOS, proposed Dr. James Churchill, NIMH program officer.

"They might be risk-takers, willing to step out into the street and lead their platoon," Churchill said, adding that it could help them excel at their jobs. "But at the same time, it might put them at risk for other types of things as well."

These Soldiers have an elevated risk for both fatal accidents and suicides.

Pretty much meets with the report of Special Forces committing suicide at higher rates as well.