‘Stunned’: Suicide Rates Among Post-9/11 Veterans Soared Tenfold In 15 Years, Study Finds

‘Stunned’: Suicide Rates Among Post-9/11 Veterans Soared Tenfold In 15 Years, Study Finds

Micaela Burrow on August 28, 2023

Suicide rates among veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11 soared in 2020 to ten times the rate of 2006 even though rates did not trend upward in the general U.S. population, according to an analysis published Monday.

Researchers examined recently-released records of 2.5 million servicemembers who fought in the post-9/11 wars going up to the year 2020 as mental health and post-traumatic stress disorder among currently serving members and veterans took a dramatic turn for the worse, according to Military.com. In addition, veterans diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury (TBI) were 56% more likely to commit suicide than other post-9/11 veterans and three times more likely than the general population, the retroactive review, published in JAMA Neurology, found.

“We were pretty stunned, honestly. Even though this is just a descriptive analysis, the trends are so alarming we felt we needed to report it as soon as possible,” Jeffrey Howard, an associate professor of public health at the University of Texas at San Antonio and the study’s lead author, told Military.com.

Between 2006 to 2020, 8,262 veterans took their own lives, which evens out to a rate of 42 per 100,000, the study found. The rate was just 18 per 100,000 in the general population over the same 15-year time span.

In 2020, the suicide rate among veterans was 31.7 per 100 000, more than 57% higher than that of the general population, the study found. TBI exposure massively increased the odds of suicide.

The 35 to 44 year-old age group showed the most risk followed by the 25- to 34-year-old group, the study found, Military.com reported.

The researchers initially set out to discover how the COVID-19 pandemic affected veteran suicide rates after receiving the updated national death index figures through 2020. However, upon reviewing the trends, what “really stood out was just how dramatically they had increased over the past 15 years,” Howard told Military.com.

Results appear at odds with the VA’s report, which examined suicide rates for all veterans and showed an overall 9.7% decline from a peak in 2018, while that of the general population went down 5.5% over the same period. The JAMA study of post-9/11 veterans shows that the rate of suicide continued to climb since 2018.

The study’s limitations include the possibility of misclassified deaths and underreporting of TBIs. Its cohort included veterans who served on active duty since Sept. 11, 2001 and had received at least three years of care under the Military Health System or two years of care from Veterans Affairs (VA).

I’m looking forward to hearing what the candidates plan to do to end the veteran suicide epidemic. Veterans deserve a leader who cares about their livelihood. https://t.co/04uTYxDxhQ

— Russ Duerstine (@RussDuerstine) August 18, 2023

Increases in mental health diagnoses, substance abuse and access to firearms could contribute to the stark rise in cases, the study’s authors suggested, according to Military.com.

Howard said that the Department of Defense and VA’s existing approaches to combating suicide do “not appear to have impacted the trend,” according to Military.com.

“I think this points to the need to reevaluate how we are going about trying to reduce suicide,” Howard told Military.com. “I think it is not solely a clinical solution, but there is a need for a much broader, multifaceted approach.”

The Daily Caller News Foundation has reached out to Howard for comment.