Army suicide rate peaks as wars continue
Earlier this year, USA Today reported that the army suicide rate dropped for the first time in four years. But according to the latest report, that decline was short lived.
Soldiers killed themselves at a rate faster than one per day in July, the Army announced Thursday. There were 38 deaths either confirmed or suspected as suicides, the highest one-month tally in recent Army history, the service said.
The Army suicide pace this year is surpassing last year, particularly among active-duty soldiers where there is a 22% increase — 116 deaths so far this year vs. 95 during the same seven months last year, according to Army data.
The current Army suicide rate seven months into this year is 29 deaths-per-100,000, far surpassing last year’s rate of about 23 deaths-per-100,000, says Bruce Shahbaz, an Army analyst. Those rates compare with a 2009 civilian rate — the latest available data — of 18.5 for a demographically similar population.
The Center for Deployment Psychology notes that “with the continued wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, military suicide rates have been increasing and surpassing the rates for society at large.”