The Benefits Of Veteran Suicide

Suicide is a serious social and public health concern within the United States and around the world. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) article Suicide Consequences (2016), suicide is the tenth leading cause of deaths among Americans. Additionally, the CDC estimates suicide cost society over $44.6 billion a year in combined medical and work loss related costs, with the average suicide costing over $1.1 million. The monetary loss is an easy statistic to acquire and measure, but the emotional loss is much greater and more difficult to gather. When a person commits suicide the lives of their loved ones are turned upside down, benefits are lost and questions are left unanswered. Suicide rates have reached an all-time high in the United States with 42,733 deaths in 2015 according to the CDC. However, the suicide rate among veterans in the United States has become a larger social issue within recent years. In the United States the term “veteran” is defined by the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), which is the codification of the general and permanent rules and regulations published in the Federal Register by the executive departments and agencies of the federal government of the United States. The implication of the CFR is important because the CFR not only oversees the Veterans Administration (VA), but also defines the term “veteran”, as a “person who served in the active military, naval, or air service, and who was discharged or released therefrom under conditions other than dishonorable” (38 U.S.C. §101, 2010; 38 C.F.R. §3.1, 2010). According to Gregg Zoroya (2014) for those last two years, suicide has become the leading killer among veterans, accounting for three of every ten veteran deaths. Additionally, the U.S. veteran annual suicide rates is …show more content…
All though, these statistics are from the VA and CDC, they are only estimates. These estimates are because neither the VA nor the CDC are not collecting data on the entire veteran population, because of the way “veteran” is defined. Anyone that has been discharged from the military with a dishonorable discharge is not accounted for as a veteran and therefore their service goes unwarranted. Additionally, until recent years, the CDC did not track veteran deaths and most veterans are not enrolled in the VA system, therefore making it almost impossible to track veteran suicide. However, what we do know is every day, 22 veterans take their own lives (Basu, 2013). That equates to a veteran suicide every 65 minutes. The purpose of the following statistical information is to provide a better lens in understanding the social issue surrounding veteran suicide as well as, identifying any population that are more likely to be affected by …show more content…
According to the statistical data from Vetpop 2014 Living Veterans by Race and Gender (VETPOP), found on the VA website, there are 21,368,156 veterans living in the United States, with 19,316,672 being male and 2,051,484 being female. In 2014, the VA overhauled their suicide prevention program in which the following statistics were found. The rate of suicide among U.S. Veteran males has increased since 2001 by 30.5% resulting in 37 suicides per 100,000 deaths in 2014. Additionally, the rate of suicide among U.S. Veteran females has increased since 2001 by 82.2% resulting in 18.9 suicides per 100,000 deaths. The statistics are staggering for both male and female veterans, however, the growth in female suicides is quite