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4/2/16, "U.S. military suicides remain high for 7th year," USA Today, Gregg Zoroya
"The Pentagon reported Friday that 265 active-duty service members
killed themselves last year (2015), continuing a trend of unusually high
suicide rates that have plagued the U.S. military for at least
seven years.
The numbers of suicides among troops was 145 in 2001
and began a steady increase until more than doubling to 321 in 2012,
the worst year in recent history for service members killing themselves.
The
suicide rate for the Army that year was nearly 30 suicides per 100,000
soldiers, well above the national rate of 12.5 per 100,000 for 2012.
Military
suicides dropped 20% the year after that, and then held roughly steady
at numbers significantly higher than during the early 2000s. The 265
suicides last year compares with 273 in 2014 and 254 in 2013. By
contrast, from 2001 through 2007, suicides never exceeded 197....
Among
efforts by the military to combat suicide was a $5 million, long-term
study by the Army that eventually produced algorithms for predicting
what group of soldiers is most likely to commit suicide. The Department of Veterans Affairs has embraced the science and will soon launch a pilot program for
helping its therapists concentrate efforts on those veterans with strong
self-destructive tendencies.
The increase in suicide in the
military was driven largely by the Army, where suicides rose sharply
from 45 in 2001 to 165 in 2012. The Army reported 120 suicides last
year, the same as in 2013 and down from 124 in 2014.
Data released Friday also show that suicides among reserve troops
— reservists in the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps and the National Guard — were 210 last year. That is an increase from 170 suicides in 2014 but down from 220 suicides in 2013.
U.S. troops have been at war since 2001 in Afghanistan, and fought in the Iraq war from 2003 to 2011."
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